The Time I Zapped My Class To Hogwarts
by killerhurricane
Summary: My friend and myself orginally wrote this for our class, and they thought that it'd be a good idea for me to post it on a site. One day, during a tedious geography session, a class of clinically insane students were zapped to Hogwarts, where they unleashed all craziness and swag upon the school of witchcraft and wizardry.
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER 1**

It was just an ordinary, boring, school day. Thursday was normally a terrible day. English, Geography, Latin, French, Math and Science – why did they even bother coming to school...? It was extremely troublesome and tiring, not to mention extremely painful (courtesy of Miss. C).

First session dragged onwards as they watched a weird film called Moonrise Kingdom where two twelve year olds felt each other up...creepy or what? It wasn't all too bad, they supposed, just a little weird.

Second session was what they dreaded. The terrible, horrifying subject called Geography - taught by the evil, EVIL human being named Monica Czerfyi. Short, bossy...and all in all scary. She could almost pass for Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter, only that she wasn't a sadist.

As 8S3 walked into the classroom dubbed "Miss C's Home" or just simply known as 610, they noticed a ginormous poster blu-tacked onto the whiteboard.

"RIVER RESEARCH PROJECT - TO BE HANDED IN WHENEVER I SAY SO"

"Alright settle down children!" Miss C said in her high-pitched, painfully loud voice. "The river annotations were supposed to be due today. If you don't have it with you, feel free to hand it in on Tuesday, or Thursday, whatever suits you children."

"I want Harry Black at the front today because I can't see what you're doing at the back of the room. Oh, I also want Julian, Joseph and Aidan up at the front." There were only three seats up the front. Not enough for the fourth person, Harry noticed.

"Um Miss C, there are only three seats up the front."

"So?! Deal with it Harrison!" Using their special telepathic powers (obviously not), the image of three dots suddenly appeared in front of their eyes.

"...?"

Once the hag finally finished her year old rant, the class got started on their assignment.

"Shirley...help me...I don't like Geography..." Katrina groaned, banging her head on the table. "I don't wanna do this...it's too troublesome..."

"I KNOW! Why do we even need to know about rivers?!" her friend replied. "We don't even need this unless we plan on being geologists."

Katrina groaned again and banged her head on the table once more.

"You know, our class should just get abducted by some magical force and sent to Hogwarts. At least there we'll actually enjoy the subjects." Upon saying that, Katrina raised her arms into the air, first making sure that Miss C's back was turned to her.

"Oh mighty powerful people from the world above! Come and rescue us from this horrid class of Czerfyis, rivers and mountains!" she said, making her voice sound high and almighty.

Metta turned to her. "Right. Because that's totally going to work." Katrina poked her hard in the shoulder before holding her fingers up in the shape of a gun.

"BANG! I just shot you!" Metta rolled her eyes at her friend.

At that exact moment, everything slowed down. Literally everything. The piece of paper Joseph had just thrown at Julian was moving super slowly through the air. Alex was doubled over laughing at a joke Dan had just told him. Hieu's expression at something Athena had just said was hilarious. Miss C stood in front of Harry, watching him like a hawk, her eyes moving stupidly slow, tracking his every move. Imogen, who wasn't even in 8S3, was handing the bulletin out. Then suddenly, all the students of 8S3 + Imogen were sucked away. Just like that. VOOM! They were gone.

Miss C blinked, then took off her glasses and cleaned them, before putting them back on. She blinked several times once again, before screaming bloody murder. Teachers from other rooms bolted out of their classrooms to check to see what was going on. When the monster had finally calmed down, she said, "8S3 just disappeared on me!" The teachers were even more baffled when she started laughing.

"NO MORE 8S3? MWAHAHAHAHA!"

* * *

Twenty-five students dropped onto the ground in some back-alley.

"Where are we?"

"What the hell just happened?"

"Woah..."

"Oi where are we?"

"Do I look like I know?"

Katrina held up her finger gun.

"Bang! I shot you again Metta."

"What?! Why'd you shoot me again?"

"Why? Because my teleportation powers worked," she grinned, "and you doubted my skill, which is why...BANG!"

Metta threw her hands in the air.

"AGAIN?!"

"Yup!"

As Katrina continued to shoot Metta, the rest of the class got to their feet and dusted off. Cobblestone alleyways weren't the cleanest of places.

"So..."

"Where are we?"

"What are we doing here?"

"How the fuck did we get here in the first place?"

Joseph stood and waved his arms around, trying to get the classes attention. Once achieved, he put on his 'I know what happened' face.

"Guys, I think Katrina just teleported us."

"..."

An awkward silence followed.

"You heard that conversation?"

Another awkward silence...

Suddenly, there was a CRACK!

"Good morning children."

"HOLY MOTHER FUCKER IS THAT DUMBLEDORE?!" Harry yelled.

"I was momentarily delayed, Mr. Black. I am Professor Dumbledore. I will forget that you said that as we have more pressing matters."

"What sort of pressing matters?" asked Imogen suspiciously.

"I understand that your school has been destroyed, you are the magical among them."

"Ohhhhh... so that's why we've turned up in Harry Potter-land." Amity said.

"Very useful exposition, Miss Harrison, yes, you have entered the magical realms."

"Isn't there a magical school in Melbourne?" Katrina asked. "And how'd we get here in the first place?"

"Why, you brought us here, Miss Chen."

"No I didn't, sir."

"You, Miss Chen, seem to have mastered the art of apparition."

"I was just messing around... I didn't touch anyone."

"Hmmm... we shall have to explore this further. In the meantime, we must visit Gringotts."

"Wait, but we don't have any money. We're just mundane muggles, right?"

Kartiya nodded her agreement.

"She's right professor. We haven't displayed any magical abilities and we do not have any wands or anything magical."

Dumbledore shook his head and raised an eyebrow.

"All of you have a magical core. The Jade Emperor's blood runs in all Easterners making them magical by default. It is only a matter of discovering it. The others of you seem to have been affected by their strong magic, hence, making you magical. But you Mr Steinmeyer, Miss Lin… you are the respective heirs of Gryffindor and Slytherin."

All of 8S3 drew back from Shirley and Alex.

Hieu slapped Alex's arm. "Why didn't you tell us?"

He shrugged. "I didn't know. Shirley..."

"Really, if I was the heir of Slytherin, do you think that I'd tell you?'

"Well YOLO!"

Dumbledore frowned. "Apologies, Mr Steinmeyer, but I believe that that isn't a word."

"Really, professor? Really?" Amy yelled.

"Shut up Amy. Alex is the heir of Gryffindor, Shirley is the heir of Slytherin and YOLO means you only live once. Why is this relevant?" Amity asked.

The headmaster coughed. "Thank you. Slytherin and Gryffindor shared a vault which contained... extensive sums of money. Gringotts requires a descendant in order to enter the vault. Come, we should leave."

Dumbledore led them through the darker parts of Diagon Alley until they came out in front of Gringotts.

"Professor, what's to say that they won't share it with us?" Deepak asked.

"Oh, I think that they will."

"And if we don't?" Alex ventured, a greedy look in his eye. Dumbledore threateningly removed his wand from an inside pocket.

"Joking, professor! Joking! We're the generous people in this class. Right? Right?"

A general murmur of agreement went through the class.

"That is alright, Mr Steinmeyer. I was joking too."

Alex gaped at him.

"To Gringotts! Let us raid Alex and Shirley's vaults!" Deepak yelled.

Dumbledore chuckled. "I think, to a lesser degree, Mr. Manchikanti."

"Actually, professor, it's Mr. Derpinson."

Dumbledore raised another eyebrow.

"My name is actually Timmy Derpinson, and I come from Curryland."

"Well, Mr Manchikanti, I think you will find friends at Hogwarts, though not those that Mr Filch would approve of." Dumbledore said, adding a slight emphasis on Deepak's last name.

"That's great. Professor, may we hurry?" Metta's twin, Karuna said. "There are heaps of things I wanna see."

The old codger nodded. "Yes, yes, of course Miss Chalapati. Allow me to lead the way."

Dumbledore stepped in front of the class and slowly lead them into Gringotts. Behind him, 8S3 burst into a whispered conversation.

"It's supposed to be 1994 right?"

"I don't know. You all still have your phones?"

26 people pulled out 26 phones. IPhones, Samsungs, HTCs...all the modern technology that had not yet been invented during this time.

"Excuse me Professor?"

"Yes Mr Kenna?"

"What is the date today?"

"Why it is July the 26th, 2013."

Arriken joined the conversation.

"But surely – "

"Mr Worsley, I assure you, the date is correct."

Joel stopped Arriken before he said anything else.

"Professor, does a Harry Potter currently attend Hogwarts?"

Dumbledore looked surprised.

"Yes. Of course Mr Kenna. He will begin his fourth year on September the 1st. I am surprised that you know of Mr Potter."

"Of course we do! He's the only to have ever survived the Killing Curse!"

How the entire class had suddenly slipped into the conversation was unknown.

"Very well. I suppose many of you will make good friends with Mr Potter and his friends. If you'll excuse me, I must talk to the goblins."

The members of 8S3 and Imogen, who was an adopted member of the class, took a seat in the gleaming white foyer of Gringotts as the headmaster spoke in Gobbledegook with the goblin that appeared to be in charge. They gathered together.

"It's the same date. Exactly the same date," Joel reported.

"To the year?" Dan asked, astounded.

"Yeah, it's still 2013. It is July 26th right?"

"Right."

Kartiya clicked her tongue. "Kat, you really messed this up."

Katrina raised her arms in defence. "It wasn't my fault. I didn't know I could do that stuff. I'm sure we all wanted to get out of Geography anyway."

"True that," her brunette friend replied.

"You know, if we ever get out of this alive, I'm writing a book about it."

"What's to say we're going to die?"

"It's Harry's fourth year. The Triwizard tournament. Didn't you read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?"

"And..." Joseph butted in.

"Dumbledore said that we were a school. That means one of us is going to be in the Triwizard Tournament."

"What are the odds?" Imogen laughed.

"One in twenty-six." Alex pointed out.

"Or 3.8461538461538%," Richard piped up.

"Ah. Is that the entire number?"

"No. There's more."

"Okay."

"So, someone's going to die?"

"Not necessarily, if no one puts their name in the Goblet of Fire, then no one will be selected," Kartiya said.

"But someone might be."

"Who's mad enough to try?" Athena asked.

They all looked at each other.

"Me!" everyone but Imogen said.

"I told you! These taskies are crazy," grumbled Imogen.

"In a different way, my alter ego," Katrina laughed.

"Well, who expected us to turn up in Harry-Potter-Land?" Karuna groaned, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

"Um...me?" Katrina replied, her voice quickly weakening under Karuna's glare.

"You know, you should really stop being so scary," Deepak commented.

Karuna turned to him and powered her glare to 100%.

"You don't scary me ugly!" He then blew a raspberry at her. She narrowed her eyes back at him.

"BANG!"

"Hahahah you've just been shot Karuna!"

"Actually, look where Katrina's pointing the gun."

Deepak turned around to see her pointing a finger gun to his head.

"BANG! You died."

"KATRINA HOW COULD YOU! YOU TRAITORRRR!"

Behind him, someone coughed.

"We are ready to go down into the vaults. Mr Steinmeyer, Miss Lin, I require some blood." Dumbledore declared upon returning.

"What?" Joseph borderline yelled.

"Oh, only a small amount, Mr Lew. It is to be sure that they are indeed the heirs of their respective houses."

"Ah."

"Geez Joseph. So concerned for your girlfriend," Hieu teased.

"Shut up!"

Dumbledore cut them off.

"Miss Ly, Mr Lew! Miss Lin, Mr Steinmeyer, if you will," he said, his arm showed them to the goblin that held two large, ornate keys.

"Hand," the goblin commanded. He didn't wait for any consent, and grabbed Alex's hand which was closest to him and pricked a finger with a copper needle. Alex winced as the goblin squeezed the pricked finger. A droplet of blood rolled onto one of the ornate keys that was held underneath. A few seconds passed, before the key absorbed the blood.

"Um...what just happened?" Alex asked. Suddenly, the carving of the lion on the handle of the key glowed brightly. It was a blinding white light that forced everyone to cover their eyes.

"FUCKING HELL ALEX I'M NEVER COMING WITH YOU TO THE BANK EVER AGAIN! MUGGLE AND WIZARDING!" someone shouted. It didn't take Alex long to guess who it was.

When the light finally subsided, the goblin handed the key to Alex, who in turn shoved it into his pocket.

"Next," the goblin said. Shirley walked forward and held her hand out for the goblin. Unlike Alex, she did not wince as it pricked her finger. Just like before, the goblin squeezed her finger and let the blood drop onto the other ornate key. Thankfully enough, the blood was only absorbed by the key, and the thing did not emit a bright light. Instead, some sort of hissing echoed around the room. As if on instinct, Shirley quickly hissed something back at the voice.

"_Yes...you are my heir..." _the creepy voice said in English after Shirley had hissed back her answer.

After she recovered from her initial shock, Shirley took the key that was now hers from the goblin and also slipped it into her pocket. Dumbledore thanked the goblin in Gobbledegook. It, in turn, shouted out to one of its colleagues.

"Grindship! Bring out the 30 person cart and load it up onto the track! Take 26 of those lightweight money sacks as well and give them to these lovely...people."

Some goblin that had been working at one of the benches full of ruby-analyzing goblins stood and shuffled to a room, flanked by two of the ugliest trolls they had ever seen.

"Shirley! How did you speak Parseltongue?!"

"I never knew you were a Parselmouth!"

"Teach me how to speak it!"

"Me too! Me too! I want to know how to speak it too!"

Katrina shielded Shirley from the class.

"GUYS! SHUT UP! GIVE HER SOME SPACE!" Everyone backed off, because no one wanted to be taekwondo-ed to Jupiter. From then until the goblin named Grindship came back with the trolls, everyone sat and waited, though there appeared to be 3m radius around Katrina, Shirley, Metta and Imogen. Those four were good friends, so it only made sense that they hadn't been taekwondo-ed to some far off planet.

Finally, the trolls came back, carrying the biggest cart they had ever seen.

"Holy cow..."

"Load it up!"

They watched in awe as the trolls loaded the ginormous thing onto the tracks that lead to the underground tunnels. Once it was loaded, the students clambered onto the carriage/cart, Grindship handing the weightless money pouches to them as they boarded. Once seated with Dumbledore in the back and the goblin at the front, the cart started to slide forward.

"Duck your heads!" the goblin commanded as they neared the ledge where there was a near vertical plummet. Everyone obeyed, except for Joseph, Zoe and Deepak, who didn't need to do anymore than lean forward a little. For people like Dumbledore, Harry, Dan, Kartiya, Aidan and Katrina, they almost had to double over.

A few minutes into the crazy ride, someone vomited over the side. It took them a few seconds to hear the splash.

"How much longer, Professor?" Karuna asked.

"We must go deep into the bowels of the tunnels, Miss Chalapati. Gryffindor and Slytherin vaults have been hidden for centuries. Even the goblin does not know where the cart is taking us," Dumbledore replied. "The goblin I was speaking to earlier ordered Grindship here in particular to help us. He is the most proficient goblin at curse breaking. I believe that Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin all have their vaults at the very bottom depths."

Grindship decided to speak up. "As Mr Dumbledore said, their vaults are in the single digits."

At this, everyone's eyes widened to an astounding size.

"Are you serious?" Alex asked hoarsely.

"I am always serious, Mr Steinmeyer."

Halfway down the plummet, Shirley realized something that she had been considering for some time.

"Professor, if we're the heirs of the houses founders, why didn't we get selected by Hogwarts when we were eleven and why have we ended up in Australia?"

"Remoteness my dear, some have described it as 'the end of the world'. We couldn't detect your magical heritage from that far away, only when Miss Chen became exceedingly bored in your History and Geography class did I realize that some Australian students had the gift of magic. Of course, I redirected you to Diagon Alley to prepare for your first years at school."

The cart screeched to a halt outside a much murkier vault.

"Vault two." Grindship declared.

"Who's vault one?" A twin yelled from the back of the cart.

"Rowena Ravenclaw. She convinced the earliest owners of Gringotts to allow her to have the very first vault. She saw our potential from the very start."

Dumbledore extricated himself from the cart and went to check the security surrounding the vault.

As Grindship checked the giant door (if you could call it a door) for any curses with the assistance of the headmaster, 8S3 gathered together and started chattering.

"Even though we've read all the books, we still don't know any spells and stuff," Richard commented.

"Azza hasn't read the books yet," Aidan pointed out. Everyone turned to glare at Arriken.

"BANG! I just –"

The class cut her off and answered in unison.

"– shot you."

Edward shook his head in resignation.

"We know. Its okay to shoot Arriken for not reading Harry Potter, but no more "I just shot yous". Just a bang is enough."

Katrina frowned and pointed her finger gun at Edward. "Bang! Edward must die."

The class laughed.

"The scary thing is that, one day, it may work." Zoe suggested mournfully.

"Bang! You die too!"

"And Zoe just died too," Metta announced.

After a few more awkward "deaths", Dumbledore decided to interrupt their fun.

"Mr Steinmeyer, if you may..."

Alex pulled Gryffindor's key out of his pocket and made his way to the vault's door.

"Yes, there were an astounding number of curses and wards...thankfully enough Mr Grindship here and I have succeeded in disabling them all. All that is required now is the key."

"Right. Thanks Professor."

He stepped forth and slotted the key inside the keyhole. A series of clicks sounded, before the entire door swung open. Alex took a step back at the sight. Mountains and mountains of gold...piled all the way to the ceiling...

"So, what's the equivalent of that in muggle money?" Deepak asked, rubbing his hands together.

"I'm afraid that Mr Steinmeyer is the only one who may touch it while it is inside the vault. If it interests you, a galleon is worth around ten of your dollars. We do not know the exact value of the vault's contents as it hasn't been touched for centuries."

Alex shook his head and slowly started to back away from the vault.

"You guys take as much as you want. I don't think we could spend it all, even if we tried."

"Ah very generous of you Mr Steinmeyer, but I believe that your permission does not grant your friends the ability to touch the money."

"Damn."

"Unfortunately for us, or so for your classmates for that matter, Godric Gryffindor was also a cautious person."

Dihan spoke up. "What if we open Slytherin's vault first, just to see if we can get money from there? Alex can just take his money from Gryffindor's vault for a half of us and the rest of us can take from Shirley's?"

The goblin nodded his agreement. "The boy's right. It'll save time."

Dumbledore thought for a moment, his expression wizened. Finally, he nodded.

"Allow us to move to Miss Lin's vault. Half of us shall stay here."

Soon enough without much bickering, the class split itself up in half. One half followed Grindship and Dumbledore to vault number 3, while the other stayed with Alex to receive their money.

"Wait Professor!" he yelled. Dumbledore turned to face Alex. "How much money do we need?"

"Hmmm..." Dumbledore took a moment to think. "I believe 500 galleons shall be sufficient per person."

Shirley's vault was creepy to say the least. The door seemed to be badly made, separate strips of metal crudely shaped together into the general form of an entrance. It took a second for people to notice that it was instead a large amount of snakes.

Dumbledore nodded to Grindship and turned to the taskies.

"It appears that a simple demonstration of Parseltongue would be sufficient to access this vault."

Shirley walked slowly forwards.

"And the key, Miss Lin."

Shirley nodded and entered it. The largest snake on the door hissed into life. The rest of the taskies stepped back. Shirley watched it intently. It hissed something. She replied in kind and after a few seconds pause the snake slithered back and the vault creaked open.

It was dark inside. Unlike Gryffindor's, there was no display of gold shining through. It was as dark as the exterior. Shirley whispered something in Parseltongue.

"What are you doing?" Dan asked, transfixed.

Shirley began in Parseltongue and stopped herself. "I asked them to turn on the lights."

Like the lights in the north building in the morning, the vault flickered with light and then illuminated piles just as great as Gryffindor's.

Shirley hissed another thing at the snake and then motioned to them. "You guys can come in and collect your own now. Slytherin was fairly confident that nobody could break into his vault. Oh, and even though Dumbledore said that 500 galleons would have sufficed, take as much as you like."

The snake suddenly swerved towards Shirley, transfixing her. She hissed something back. The snake backed off.

"It says..."

The vault slammed shut; Joseph Lew, being the idiotic one among them, had slipped under the snake and begun to collect the gold.

"It'll trap anyone who goes in..."

"BANG!" Katrina did it jokingly, but the door that she'd aimed at suddenly burst open and a disgruntled Joseph slid out just as the door reformed.

"Slytherin's legacy stands firm in the knowledge that intruders will be in serious trouble." Dumbledore chuckled.

Joseph snorted and the headmaster shot him a look reminiscent of the twins, though he didn't know it yet.

"Can you reopen it, Shirley?" Katrina asked.

Shirley had a very fast argument in Parseltongue. The snake grudgingly opened up again. Slytherin's heir gesticulated angrily at it and the remaining taskies began to collect reasonable amounts of gold – safe, for now.

The ride back to the surface was at least to say, exhilarating. The strange group emerged from Gringotts chatting noisily. Mostly they were relating the comical story of Joseph's trapping at the hands of Slytherin. And a few twin jokes. Because... twin jokes.

* * *

Dumbledore lead them to the front of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor.

"Now," he announced, "to Ollivanders'." There was a general feeling of excitement.

"However I fear that we may destroy his shop if we all went in. Perhaps we should split up. Divide yourselves please and I will hand out your lists. I also suggest that those who go to Flourish and Blott's should buy all the books for the rest of the class and be returned the correct amount of money." Dumbledore looked over the top of his half-moon spectacles at the class after saying the last sentence.

Joseph, Shirley and Deepak found themselves headed for the Magical Menagerie.

"...an owl, a cat or a toad."

"Or an insect of some sort," Deepak grumbled. "This is going to get silly."

"Let's see..." Shirley suggested hopefully.

Joseph shook his head. "Nope. Let's go in and buy everything."

* * *

Elsewhere, Harry Black, Kartiya, Karuna and Alex entered Ollivanders'. The shop was cramped and close. When the ancient wandmaker emerged, it was held some surprise for them. He was just as creepy as he had been described in the book.

"A little old for Hogwarts first years I think."

"Oh, no, we're teleported taskies." Kartiya suggested helpfully.

"I don't think I follow. But, to wands. An area of my expertise. Perhaps we should start with you..." Ollivander gestured towards Alex.

"Alex... Steinmeyer."

"Ah. Yes, Mr Steinmeyer, I see power, and history and a chivalry not seen quite like yours in nearly a thousand years. Let me see."

Ollivander turned and took a second to place a wand in front of Alex. "Willow, eleven inches, gryphon and unicorn, springy."

The man looked him up and down.

"No, try this... Twelve and a quarter inches, elm, dragon heartstring, brittle." As soon as Alex picked it up he nodded.

"Yes. This suits you well, Mr Steinmeyer. I think that this wand was made for you, a rarity I assure you. It is curious where many come from. Australia, I think."

Alex was unnerved.

"Thank you... I think."

Ollivander came out of his trance and returned to his brisk, seller's manner.

"That'll be seven galleons for the wand. Next?"

Harry stepped forward, and the shop exploded.

* * *

Flourish and Blott's was just as grand as the books and films suggested. Metta, Katrina, Imogen, Karuna, Dan and Zoe ended up there, book lists out.

"What, no Monster Book of Monsters?" Metta suggested dryly looking at the list.

"Interestingly enough, no." Zoe replied.

"Do you think there's a wizarding dictionary?" Imogen asked skeptically.

The group groaned.

Zoe led the way inside. The owner looked them up and down suspiciously.

"Muggles in Diagon Alley." He sniffed.

Katrina glared at him, and then turned to speak with her friends. "Ohhh, our locker keys. Geez guys, why do you still bother with that stupid lanyard? I gave mine away a while ago ya know?" she chided. Then turning back to the shopkeeper, she said "And you are daft. Everyone knows that there's no way muggles can enter Diagon Alley."

"Oh, and regarding your comment earlier, we also thought so until about an hour ago. But then Katrina decided to apparate our class here and now we're planning on causing chaos because we're good at that sort of thing."

She smiled unconvincingly. The keeper still looked disdainful.

"Right, we need the Standard Book of Spells, first edition, a History of Magic and all the other stuff first year's need and..." Zoe looked down the long list. "Actually, we need 26 copies of all the Hogwarts textbooks from Grades 1 to 4, and out of interest is there such thing as a wizarding dictionary?" Zoe interjected brusquely.

"There is, however I do not recommend it for people such as yourselves," the man sniffed again. "It is...dangerous."

"Right, well, thanks for trying."

The man walked slowly off to find their books.

"Do you think we need robes?" Dan asked.

"We could create our own wizarding school uniform." Katrina suggested.

"Sounds like a bad computer game." Karuna said dryly.

"We could just get robes and all that. But make them, 8S3-like." Katrina finished.

"What, clinically insane?" Imogen groaned.

"BAN –" started Katrina her arm just about to point at Imogen with her finger gun. There were five shouts of no. Two pairs of hands grabbed her arm and pushed it down. The other two pairs went to cover her mouth while Imogen emerged from underneath the bench.

"You will _kill people_ and _destroy the place _if you shoot Imogen." Zoe emphasized.

Katrina mouthed an "oh" before quickly apologizing to her antisocial, oxymoron friend.

Soon enough, the shopkeeper returned with 286 books levitating behind him, 26 copies of 21 books. They had decided to skip out on Lockhart's books, considering the fact that they were more fairytales than textbooks.

Allowing the books to levitate in front of the counter, the shopkeeper said, "That comes to 572 galleons, 11 sickles and 3 knuts."

"FUCKING HELL WE'RE SPENDING 5720 ODD DOLLARS ON BOOKS?!"

The six quickly sat on the floor and pooled out their money onto the floor.

"How many sickles was it to a galleon?"

"How many of these bronze thingies to a sickle?"

After sorting out the money and what not, they paid for all the books and went on to buy the other 50 odd things on the list.

Soon enough, everyone had completed their shopping and what not. Wands, robes (unfortunately, they had not been able to convince Madam Malkins to customize their robes to be "8S3-like"), pets, cauldrons, trunks...EVERYTHING! Dumbledore had placed a feather-light and an unidentifiable extension charm on each of their trunks, so there was no trouble in fitting everything inside. Money had been returned to those who had paid for the books.

"Students, we shall now floo to Hogwarts."

A cheer sounded from the class. This was definitely better than Geography.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

Twenty-six ash covered teens stumbled through Professor McGonagall's office's fire-place one by one, which had somehow magically expanded so that it could fit the student and the trunk.

"Try not to get to much ash on the ground."

The voice was curt, with a slight Scottish accent. She hadn't even looked around.

"She's like Miss Carroll!" Imogen declared in slight fear.

"After one sentence, Miss Ellis?"

"It's complicated, so I'll shut up."

"Thank you. Professor Dumbledore led me to believe that you are indeed an entire school."

"Technically speaking, yes."

Professor McGonagall turned to face the class/school of students.

"Are you not the school called 8S3?"

The taskies turned to each other.

"Um..."

"Well?"

At that moment, Dumbledore appeared from the fireplace.

"Good afternoon, Minerva," he greeted.

"Good afternoon Albus," she replied tartly. "I take these students have bought the necessary things?"

"Of course, my dear. I was just about to discuss the accelerated classes they will be taking in order to catch up with our lovely fourth years."

"Well, that's convenient." Imogen grumbled at the back.

McGonagall looked at the students over her glasses. "Yes, yes. You have discussed this with the others then?" It was a rhetorical question that didn't sound very rhetorical.

"I believe they will be arriving soon."

Meanwhile, the taskies found themselves sitting together in a group, their trunks all lines up against the stone wall.

"An accelerated course again?!"

"It's only for a while I think."

"Today's the 26th of July."

"Oh my God stop saying the date. We've said it like 5 times already."

"But the date's important here! We need to know what's going to happen next and stuff!"

"She's right you know."

"So let's see...Harry and the others – no not you Hazza, Harry Potter – arrive on the 1st."

"Of September."

"Yes, of September."

"Moody or Crouch Jr...what do we do about him?"

"I say we leave it as it is. Otherwise Harry will never even get into the Triwizard Tournament, which means that he won't win the money, which also means that he won't give the money to Fred and George because he never won it in the first place and Fred and George's joke shop will never exist which is a terrible thing because joke shops are awesome."

"But I don't want Cedric to die!"

"That is true. When he dies he turns into a glittering vampire fairy princess. We should save him from that fate."

"But if Cedric doesn't die, that means that Robert Pattinson will continue to act in Harry Potter which means that he won't act in Twilight which will be the complete destruction of Twilight and the Twilight fans! Though that isn't necessarily a bad thing..."

"Guys, we shouldn't interfere with anything. The only things we should really change is Sirius' death, Fred's death, George's missing ear, and Harry's – NO NOT YOU HAZZA! And Harry's self-centered, cry-baby behavior. We might be able to save Sirius that way."

"Okay. We know from Pottermore that Imy and Metta will be sorted into Gryffindor. Alex is the heir so he's obviously going there even though he hasn't been officially sorted. I think it'd be good for Harry _Potter _to befriend us, even though we'll be in Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. It may prevent less people from signing up to Professor Umbridge's "Inquisitor's Squad" or whatever the hell it's called. Not only that, it will reinforce the unification of the four houses."

"Pah! As if we want anything to do those Gryffindorks."

"I will murder you Joseph."

"Does anyone have the list of who gets sorted to which house?"

Katrina pulled out her phone and turned it on.

"Wait! It won't work because there is too much magical activity going on in Hogwarts."

"Yeah yeah." Katrina pulled out her wand and tapped her phone, saying "Power" in Japanese. Her phone switched on and DIDN'T go haywire.

"Where'd you learn that from?"

"That's not possible Kat. You should know that."

"AHMAHGAWD SHADDUP! I learnt it from a fanfiction. Harry Potter and the Order of the Bleached Phoenix? A Harry Potter and Bleach crossover?"

Everyone looked at her with confused expressions.

"No one read that? No one at all? Damn. I learnt heaps of useful stuff from there. Also, I just remembered, there is actually a magical school in Australia. It's up in Queensland."

"Meh. Hogwarts is better."

"True dat."

"So...the list."

Katrina entered her Notes on her phone and opened 8S3 Hogwarts.

"Let's see...I'm going to read it out and you guys remember your own houses 'k?" 8S3 nodded. "Okay... Zoe – Slytherin, Harry – Slytherin, Dan – Slytherin, Edward – Ravenclaw, Karuna – Ravenclaw, Metta – Gryffindor, Katrina – Slytherin, Amity – Ravenclaw, Richard – Slytherin, Daniel – Hufflepuff, Joel – Slytherin, Joseph – Slytherin, Shirley – Slytherin, Hieu – Hufflepuff, Deepak – Slytherin, Aidan – Hufflepuff, Julian – Slytherin, Athena – Ravenclaw, Kartiya – Slytherin, Alex – Gryffindor, Amy – Hufflepuff, Brigita – Ravenclaw, Arriken – Ravenclaw, Dihan – Hufflepuff, Jerry – Hufflepuff, Imogen – Gryffindor. You guys all got that?"

They nodded. Taskies generally had good memories anyway. Generally being the word of the moment.

"So..."

"I think we've run out of ideas, so let's just stop talking.J"

Dumbledore and McGonagall returned. "What is that, Miss Chen?" she demanded, gesturing wildly at Katrina's phone.

"Oh, it's my iPhone professor." Katrina said innocently.

"But what is an iPhone?! All muggle ekletricity things do not function at Hogwarts!"

The headmaster stepped forward. "We are moving away from the point at hand, Minerva, though that is a brilliant piece of magic Miss Chen."

"Thanks Professor." Katrina smiled beatifically.

"Now, allow me to introduce you to our teachers at Hogwarts. First..."

One by one, each teacher was introduced to 8S3. They all looked just as they had expected. Professor Snape's hair was just as greasy as the books and movies depicted, Professor Trelawny looked just like a giant beetle...all in all, everything was more or less the same. After exchanging greetings, Dumbledore continued on to speak.

"Among our teachers, we have decided that we shall be accelerating your learning in order to bring you up to standard with the other fourth years. Of course, it is also so you all will have a chance to enter the Triwizard Tournament as the school 8S3. I daresay I can already think of who will be chosen." Dumbledore looked pointedly at Alex.

"YOLO," Alex said. Dumbledore nodded solemnly. "Yes Mr Steinmeyer, YOLO indeed."

The teachers looked at each other, shocked and confused.

"Headmaster, may I ask...what is the meaning of this..._YOLO_?" Professor Snape asked.

Dumbledore broke into a huge smile that blinded everyone in the room.

"Why Severus, Mr Steinmeyer has just used a brilliant acronym. You see Severus, it means You Only Live Once, which is indeed, true, unless you are Lord Voldemort of course."

"And Mr Steinmeyer will always be there to say it at appropriate intervals." Snape sniffed.

"It's kind of ironic, actually."

"Very well."

"Sir, when was the last time you wash –" Joseph began but was cut off by a fast thinking Amity.

"So, what class do you teach, professor?"

Snape began his usual speech on potions in general and finished with:

"I understand that you are to be accelerated. Bear in mind that potions hastened would be disastrous if done... incorrectly. I warn you all, caution and common sense are the crucial elements within my classroom. Any foolishness will not be tolerated."

Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"Thank you, Severus. Students of 8S3, you may inhabit the Gryffindor Common Room until we sort you on September the 1st. There will be a sorting in the next week hopefully, though a sorting in front of the school as that would be a formality. Timetables will be distributed and your classes will begin after then. Until then, you may explore the castle within reason and...experiment to a degree. Professor McGonagall will show you to the Gryffindor dormitories. You are dismissed."

* * *

The next week passed in quick succession. Spells they had learnt from reading the Harry Potter series were practiced on either each other or the dummies in the Room of Requirement; Madam Hooch had given them a crash course on flying brooms and Quidditch – it was soon discovered that 8S3 had talent in this particular sport, probably because they had seen it played and imagined themselves playing it many times; they raided the kitchens and junked up on all the food that the elves gave them, much to their delight – all in all, 8S3 all had a brilliant time. Karuna, Metta and Katrina spent much of their time in the library reading. The books were all incredibly fascinating, even the history books. Metta quickly fell in love with _Hogwarts – a History_.

Joel, Joseph and Shirley rediscovered the Chamber of Secrets in the out of order girl's lavatories. After learning the _power_ charm from Katrina, they took many pictures of the dead basilisk that had yet to start disintegrating and wandered the tunnels underneath the school. The Parselmouth of the group figured that if she said _stairs _in Parseltongue, stairs would appear to allow them to get back to the surface. It actually worked.

Richard, Deepak, Jerry and Edward soon discovered that magic was really just an extremely concentrated form of energy. Those who were 'magical' had these condensed forms of energy inside their bodies.

* * *

Though there was no official teaching until August, the teachers were hunted down every few hours to at least try and answer a plethora of questions. It baffled the teachers how such young students could cram so much knowledge into their heads. As soon as they had started their crash-course on magic, Professor Dumbledore found that he needed to speed up the already accelerated program to catch up with the speed the students were learning. In no sooner than a week, they had completed the first year exam, and in the third, the second year. It was completely ridiculous.

Towards the end of the third week during a game of hide-and-seek, Katrina accidently pointed her finger gun at Alex and said "BANG!". Luckily enough, Alex had dodged behind a wall, which meant that the shot headed straight for Professor McGonagall's office's door. Then...it went BOOM!

* * *

A week before the beginning of term, Quidditch tryouts began for 8S3. It started as a bit of a disaster as everyone wanted to try out for every position, but in the end they decided to organize everyone into height order and work from there.

Based purely on his contact song, Deepak became the seeker with Joseph as his reserve. The chasers ended up being Katrina, Metta and Karuna. The twins were threatened with more twin jokes should they sabotage games through sibling rivalry. Imogen ended up as the keeper, despite being rather short compared to the rest of the class. Alex and Harry became beaters, unanimously picked based purely on their hockey backgrounds. Shirley purchased Firebolts for everyone in the Quidditch team.

When approached with when they were to be sorting, Dumbledore reported to have "lost the sorting hat" and declared that they would have to wait until the opening feast. The class had just shrugged. Though not always apparent, patience was common among taskies.

* * *

On the morning of the first of September, twenty-six students sat a third year test, allowing them to pass into normal classes at Hogwarts for people of their age. Dumbledore miraculously found the sorting hat and Professor McGonagall demanded that everyone actually clean up their school robes.

"_Tergio._ We learnt that last week, professor." Joseph declared, bored.

"Your learning process will slow down, Mr Lew. I hope you understand that."

"So we passed professor?" Metta asked.

"Yes. Better than the last year did. I believe you and Karuna outscored a Miss Granger, until now the highest achiever since Dumbledore."

"That's worrying more than anything else, professor." Katrina put in. The twins shot her their death stares.

"But Miss Chen! Your scores were exactly the same as the Chalapati twins! I believe Miss Granger shall have some competition this year."

Katrina's started gaping like a goldfish.

"B-but..."

"And I daresay Professor Snape has taken a certain liking towards you, Miss Chalapati and Chalapati, Miss Ellis and Miss Lin."

Katrina's jaw hit the ground.

"P-professor..."

"HAHAH SUCK ON THAT KATRINA!"

Her eyes narrowed.

"KARUNA I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"

And thus, the greatest ever game of tag was born.

* * *

"So..."

The class had been told by Karuna, who was told by her sister, who was told by Dihan and Alex that Professor McGonagall wanted them to wait in the side chamber as the first year students were sorted. The chamber had been altered by the headmaster so that they could see and hear what was going on in the Great Hall, but the students outside were unable to see them. It was just like standing in a room purely made out of one-way glass, only with a magical touch to it.

Up on stage, as Dumbledore finished his "beginning of feast speech", Professor McGonagall gestured to the room in which the taskies were in.

"Albus, you've forgotten to mention our newcomers," she stage whispered. Dumbledore "oh'd".

"Ah, I forgot to mention, students from a special school in Australia shall be joining us at Hogwarts."

The students sitting at the dining tables started to chatter.

"Students!" Dumbledore hushed them, "I shall now inform you that these students...their school had been destroyed by an unearthly form of magic some time ago, which is why they shall now be attending Hogwarts as fourth years," he paused.

The taskies took it as their cue to walk out of the room. They walked out in a single line (strangely enough) and stood in front of the teachers' table. There was an awkward pause.

Professor McGonagoll pulled out a list.

"Abletez, Zoe."

Zoe strode towards the stool and tucked the sorting hat onto her head.

"SLYTHERIN!" the hat shouted. The ties on her robes changed to green and silver. Slytherin colors.

"Black, Harrison."

"Slytherin!"

"Bruce, Daniel."

"Slytherin!"

* * *

As the sorting continued, a conversation started between Hermione and Ginny.

"That's a lot of Slytherins," Ginny whispered to her bushy-haired friend.

"I know! I wonder if we'll get any Gryffindors." Hermione replied. She had hoped that there'd be more Gryffindors. The more she observed, the more she noticed that none of the new students really seemed like they belonged to any real house. The expressions they wore were much too kind to be Slytherin, yet they had this kind of spark in their eyes that spelled trouble that would not fit into Hufflepuff. They looked brave, but not in the Gryffindor way. According to certain rumors, Hermione knew they were smart, but just didn't seek it for knowledge's sake like Ravenclaw.

After the first three Slytherins, the next two were sorted into Ravenclaw.

"Chalapati, Metta."

"GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table erupted into cheers.

"Chen, Katrina."

A tall girl walked up towards the hat and sat on the stool looking extremely bored. Hermione guessed that she would be sorted into Gryffindor.

The hat took a moment to decide. If a hat could look careful, then that was exactly what the sorting hat looked like.

"GRYFF – wait what? Of course I'm sure! You don't? You'll blow up the whole place if I put you there!"

The Sorting Hat appeared to be having some sort of argument with Katrina. When Hermione looked at the girl's friends, she saw them doubled over, laughing.

"Very well...you are correct...though it was in the interest of the safety of Hogwarts. SLYTHERIN!"

Hermione gaped at the Sorting Hat.

"Ellis, Imogen."

"Gryffindor!"

The next twelve students were sorted into Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin – mainly Slytherin. It was a rather bland sorting, though the Sorting Hat did have a rather interesting discussion with a "Manchikanti, Deepak" about psychology.

"Steinmeyer, Alexander."

The boy who had made the speech earlier made his way to the Sorting Hat. The hat hadn't even touched his head when it shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"

Once "Xu, Jerry" had been sorted, Hermione counted eleven new Slytherins, six new Hufflepuffs, six new Ravenclaws, and only...three...only three new Gryffindors. As she sat up eagerly to see if the three Gryffindor's would join their table, she found herself disappointed to see that they were sitting elsewhere. Instead of sitting with the other Hogwarts students, the students from 8S3 took a seat at a table that had magically been conjured next to the teacher's table.

Even after Dumbledore had said the magic words that made the food poof into existence, Hermione continued to watch the new students.

"Oi, 'ermyee. De 'ood iz 'ere," Ron nudged her. He then swallowed his food. "I'm sure you'll have a chance to get to know them later. Blood hell...so many Slytherins. I suppose that means more idiots wandering around."

Ginny elbowed her brother sharply in the ribs. "But look. They're all sitting there on the table together."

Harry nodded his agreement. "Ginny's right. Look at them. They all get along almost as well as we do."

Hermione frowned. "They look like a very tight knit group of friends. And there are 26 of them. They're like their own house." She then stood. "Well, I don't care if almost half of them are Slytherins. I'm going over." With that, she stood and walked over to the new students' table.

* * *

8S3 dug into their food happily.

"The Gryffindors don't look very happy." Deepak commented.

"That's probably because they only got three of us. I still don't understand how half of us managed to get into Slytherin."

"Hey! We expected this from the beginning remember? According to Pottermore, like, half of us are Slytherins."

"Well we're taskies. We're supposed to be Ravenclaws~"

"That's the Chapman taskies."

"You know what I find interesting? How we are just dubbed "the taskies", but the Chapman guys are dubbed "The Chapman Taskies"."

"Who knows? We must be too weird."

"You got that right."

Richard nudged Dan. "Hey, Hermione's coming." Dan quickly passed the message around. The conversation of taskies dropped and they started their usual, noisy banter.

"I like cheeeeeeeeese!"

"BAN – wait I probably shouldn't shoot anyone."

"If you do, no one will live."

If any outsiders were to listen in to their conversation, it would have sounded like someone had released clinically insane people onto the street to organize some form of a party.

"U-um...hi."

Twenty-six eyes swiveled to the bushy-haired girl standing at the end of their table. They all watched as she composed herself. At this point, there was nothing they could do but wait for her to introduce herself. They all knew that she was Hermione Granger, it was just difficult to go: "Oh hi Hermione! We know all about you because we've all read books about your adventures with Harry and Ron" and as wrong as that sounded, it just didn't bide for anything good to come.

"I'm Hermione Granger."

Imogen was the first to speak up. "Well hello there Hermione. Why don't you take a seat with us so we can get to know you better?"

Perfect. Everything was going perfectly. The plan? Get close to Hermione, get close to Ron, then get close to Harry, transform him from his self-centered crybaby self to something better in order to save everyone. Easy? Of course. For 26 people that was.

Hermione took a seat at the end at the end of the table.

"So I heard that you guys come from Australia?"

"Yes. We were all in class when Katrina suddenly decided to teleport us here." Brigita started casually. At Hermione's shocked expression, she quickly added, "By accident of course."

"I see..." Hermione replied, her voice several octaves above its original tone.

"That's Katrina down there by the way." The tall girl that had had the argument with the Sorting Hat waved at her, grinning. "She accidentally blew up Professor McGonagall's office a few days ago."

"SHE DID WHAT?!"

"Want some chips?" Hermione quickly identified her as Kartiya. She was rather taken aback at the genuine smile that was on the girl's face. What was with these people? The Slytherins didn't act like Slytherins; it just wasn't correct! Slytherins were supposed to be mean and calculating. They were supposed to look down upon others, especially those who weren't purebloods.

"Yes, please."

Upon offering her chips, the whole situation became less awkward, and an un-awkward conversation started.

"So Hermione, we hear that you're the brightest witch in your year," Karuna started.

The girl started blushing. "Yes, though my friends and I heard rumors on the train that you all sat first, second, and third year exams in a month! All because the teaching system in Australia is completely different. Surely it would have been extremely tiring?"

"Actually, it was fairly easy. I think the majority of us almost got full marks," Harry said.

Hermione looked rather shocked. "But...but...we took a whole year to even come close to passing and you pass third year with full marks in a _month_?"

Imogen spoke. "You undervalue yourself, Hermione. Oh, and just pointing a fact out, only Joseph, Katrina, Karuna and Metta received full marks. Karuna and Metta are the twins by the way."

"Four of you...?" Hermione asked weakly.

"Don't worry. Some of us like me borderline failed."

"Oh." The witch looked slightly relieved.

"So...tell us about Hogwarts and your friends."

* * *

"Hey, where'd Hermione go?" Harry asked.

Ron pointed to the new students. "Off to that new table. They look a bit strange."

"They look ok."

Ron shrugged. "Some of them look a bit mental."

"I suppose...but they don't look like Malfoy and his lot."

"Some of them look like they're about ten."

"Maybe classes have been... sped up?" Harry suggested. He stood to go see what had kept Hermione for so long. Ron followed. The new students didn't seem exactly...sane.

"Budge up, Hermione." Ron mumbled. She moved along the bench to allow him and Harry in.

"This is 8S3 and Imogen," Hermione introduced.

"Well, according to Katrina, it's just 8S3." Imogen suggested helpfully, "I'm adopted."

"BA –" Katrina started.

"NO KATRINA!"

"What?" Ron was utterly confused.

"Katrina...she can...kill people by shaping her finger like a gun and pretending to shoot people and saying bang," Athena explained as if it were the simplest thing on Earth.

"Is that even possible? Isn't that against one of the laws of magic?"

"With taskies, anything is possible." Imogen supplied.

"What's a taskie?" Harry asked.

"It's complicated and unnecessary, so we'll leave it to you to work out."

Amazingly enough, Hermione managed an explanation within the first few seconds.

"We know you guys are from Australia. I heard that in Australian high schools, they have a program which enables students to complete high-school in 5 years instead of 6. Perhaps taskies is a nickname given to these students? You know, something like...the task force."

"Wow..." Jerry started. "You really are Hermione."

"Of course I'm Hermione, Jerry!"

"R-right, sorry."

"Yes," Joseph continued. "You know absolutely everything."

"So, do you know about the worldwide bestsellers published around your adventures and attempts to defeat Voldemort?" Deepak went on flippantly.

Hermione looked completely baffled.

"Worldwide bestseller...published...what?"

"Oh come on, you're muggle born."

"An English one too."

"So it's 2013?"

"Of course! What did you think it was? 1994?"

"So what do you think of Emma Watson?"

At this point, Ron and Harry were completely and utterly confused.

"Who's Emma Watson?" Ron and Harry asked unanimously.

"ENOUGH! We can pester Hermione, Ron and Harry about their alter egos later." Alex yelled in frustration.

"But this is going to be so much FUN!" Joseph shouted in happiness.

"Ignore him, he's a precocious, obnoxious, facetious git." Zoe provided.

"Pew pew pew die Zoe die!"

"And to add to my previous point, we're all facetious."

"Ok..." Ron was baffled.

"And this class-"

"WE"

"-are clinically insane." Imogen said as though that were a good thing.

"Bloody hell."

"Are you... MENTAL?"

"Or clinically insane, whatever satisfies you."

"Who are you anyway?" Richard asked.

"I," Harry went on, ignoring Imogen, "am Harry Potter and this is Ron Weasley a friend of mine and we were finding out what Hermione was doing over here."

"Being curious, because she's not like that at all." Deepak said.

"You know, she can speak for herself." Kartiya argued.

"Thanks...guys." Hermione spoke, unsure of what really to say.

"You're welcome."

"So, what does your average Hogwarts day consist of?" Dan asked, in an attempt at civil conversation.

Julian, who never really spoke much, said "I'm looking forward to potions. Professor Snape teaches well."

"WHAT?" The Hogwarts students said in shocked unison.

Daniel Jiang, an asian boy who looked slightly loony, agreed with them. "YEAHHHH JULIAN! HE TOLD ME OFF FOR BLOWING UP A CAULDRON!"

"YOU LIKE SNAPE!" they yelled.

"...and?"

"And we thought that you were nice enough people."

"But Snape likes us."

"You know, he doesn't hate you Harry, you see your-"

"Shut up, Deepak!"

"Don't give the bo-, I mean, the life of Harry Potter away."

Joseph chimed in. "Yeah Deepak, next time, say SPOILER ALERT."

Harry looked incredibly confused.

"So, you're all genuine seers now?"

"Not exactly."

"Ignore him. He's being a...prat." Zoe said, looking towards Ron for approval.

Ron shook his head. "You're all mental. That's it – Hermione, you're coming with us. These people are insane."

Hermione started to protest. "RONALD WEASLEY! I AM STAYING HERE AND SO WILL YOU AND HARRY!" She then sat down and continued the conversation as if nothing wrong had happened.

"But... interesting. It's a pity only three of you are in Gryffndor."

"You could say that." Alex said.

"If you had seen us at our old school, you would 1) have seen why most of us ended up as Slytherins, and 2) realized that it is in fact, a blessing, that only three of us ended up in your house."

"It's a pity that we weren't in the library when you teleported us out, Katrina."

"No, Joseph. Absolutely not."

"Besides, they might not have like JK Rowling's style."

"You know...that makes JK Rowling a stalker."

"And, we like library."

"Who on earth is JK Rowling?" Hermione asked, bemused.

"You don't want to know."

"Actually...she's a creepy stalker that watches your every move and writes books about you all."

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked disbelievingly at him.

"Enough! Look, Dumbledore's going to stop the madness." Kartiya finally interjected.

* * *

Dumbledore's speech was just as they remembered from the books. "Professor Moody" even burst through the Great Hall's doors just like in the movie.

Finally, it was onto the Triwizard Tournament.

"...as for those who are not yet of age, feel free to try and place your name in the Goblet of Fire, after all...YOLO."

"YOLO!?" Hermione screeched. "YOLO!? What is this YOLO?"

"It's an acronym of popular culture, commonly used an excuse to do stupid things. We kind of brought it into the school, but most of the class uses it ironically, Dumbledore really seems to have it cottoned on. Oh, look, Professor Moody's twenty minutes late."

"Hmm... Mad-eye Moody?" Harry asked. "Didn't your Dad help him out the other day, Ron, the auror?"

"Yeah. Wonder what he's teaching?"

"Defence against the dark arts. Only it's not actually him but someone impersonating him with polyjuice potion to ki-"

"SPOILER ALERT!" Deepak yelled over the top of Joseph.

"Kill who?"

"Guess, Ronald, guess."

"Shut up! I want to hear what Dumbledore's saying."

And indeed, the "shut up" had been well timed.

"This year, the lovely Australian school will be entering the Triwizard Tournament with us. They will enter as their own school – 8S3."

Then, the students of Hogwarts started to protest.

"What is this?! They're merely 14 year olds!"

"This is bullshit!"

"How can they enter the tournament but we can't?'

"This is ridiculous and unfair!"

By now, 8S3 were feeling mildly irritated, even though they had been expecting this to happen. Suddenly, Deepak jumped on top of the table and shouted, "Will you all just shut up?!" The entire hall shushed as they watched to see if any teacher would berate boy for swearing. It came to them as a surprise when none did.

Alex stepped up and stood next to Deepak.

"Everyone, please try to understand our situation. As Professor Dumbledore here said earlier, YOLO. You only live once. Do you understand this? Our lives have been ruined and we just want to enjoy the rest of it. We may just be 14 year olds just like you, but from where we came from, we were accelerated and learning what sixth years here may learn. As I said earlier, please try to understand out situation." With that, he stepped back and pulled Deepak along with him.

The teachers started clapping at Alex's speech, nodding in strange approval. Soon enough, the rest of the school started to join in. There were many tear-streaked faces among the Hogwarts students sitting at the dining tables. Others were nodding their agreement and understanding. Wow...S3 really hadn't anticipated that their acting skills were that good. In reality, they really knew that their school hadn't been destroyed. In fact, they had even gone as far as to tell Dumbledore that they knew their school hadn't been destroyed and that they really were only muggle students. In the end, they had all agreed that the taskies would stay here to complete their magical education before going back to their regular lives. The school being destroyed was merely a cover story. Fake as it originally sounded, S3's excellent acting skills had made the whole things seem true and entirely believable. Heck, even the teachers believed them. The only other person in the entire school who knew was Professor McGonagall, but only because she was the Deputy Head.

"A heartfelt speech Mr Steinmeyer." Professor Dumbledore said. He then turned to the crowd. "That was indeed, a heart breaking speech. Thank you Mr Steinmeyer and Mr Manchikanti – you may take your places."

* * *

"So, who are the three Gryffindors?"

"Me."

"Me. And her."

"Okay who's me, me and her?"

"Metta, Alex, Imogen."

"And you're in Gryffindor because..."

"Well, Alex is the heir, Metta couldn't bear to be with Karuna and Imogen is for no apparent reason."

"Gee thanks, I'll just run off to Slytherin, shall I?"

"NO!" Harry, Ron and Hermione yelled.

"Bedtime! Chop chop!" Dumbledore interrupted their crazy conversation to order them to bed.

* * *

The newly reinstated (well, most of them) inhabitants of Hogwarts began to file out of the hall. The taskies took their time, following the ends of their respective houses and not quite getting lost. A lot of stairs, a certain amount of complicated passwords and a logic test later and everyone ended up in bed. But not asleep. Because Skype worked on everyone's phones, just to confuse their magical counterparts that bit more.


	3. I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT

Um...erm...okay I sincerely apologise for not actually giving you a list of all the members of my class beforehand to make the story easier to understand. Kudos to you if you understood any of the blabber in Chapters 1 and 2.

So...I've compiled a list with rough descriptions of my classmates.

* * *

Zoe (Miss Abletez) - The shortest female in the class, red highlights since last year which have now magically turned dark, weird just like the rest of us...and excellent at phot editing and anything of that kind.

Harry (Mr Black) - Tall, good at sport, excellent at science and plays hockey with Alex (Mr Steinmeyer). Dan (Mr Bruce) - Also tall, has great logic, loves wristbands and minecraft.

Edward (Mr Buckland) - Shortish, has an ego the size of Antarctica (only because it has cracks in it), insanely good at piano...overconfident and cocky.

Karuna (Miss Chalapati) - Freakin' scary ass glare, extremely sarcastic, ridiculously smart and somewhat...scary.

Metta (Miss Chalapati) - One of my best friends! Hates it when Imogen and I make twin jokes about her and Karuna, has a glare that isn't as powerful as her sister's and has really big handwriting.

Katrina (Miss Chen) - THAT'S ME! Lazy, facetious, flippant, excellent at maths, partly photographic memory (I read and understand = I remember for a long, long time), oh…and Star Trek. Gotta love Star Trek. Taekwondo. Black belt XD.

Imogen (Miss Ellis) - Another on of my best friends! An excellent writer, screen-play writer, co-writer of this fanfiction, footballer...and the adopted member of my class. She's really part of another class but meh.

Amity (Miss Harrison) - Biggest k-pop fan I've ever met, awesome at drawing, sarcastic and likes to tell people to shut up. A good friend though.

Richard (Mr Huang) - Computer geek, smart, likes androids, maths and minecraft.

Daniel (Mr Jiang) - I'll be honest. He's slightly loony. One time, he saw Imogen and randomly pointed her and said "Gretttaaaaaa!" Really good at soccer, and...sport in general.

Joel (Mr Kenna) - Skyrim, my Mirror's Edge buddy, generally quiet around others, creepily good at geography...

Joseph (Mr Lew) - Animal lover, has a slightly psychopathic side, seems to have a strange fetish for quotes, and writes really dark stories.

Shirley (Miss Lin) - Another besties! Animal lover, the most selfless person I know, overly generous, loves k-pop (EXO), and owns a blue-tongue lizard names Toothless.

Hieu (Miss Ly) - Maths, Queen of Swag, netball, owns a swag gun, takes heaps of selfies, has a very..."sexy imagination".

Deepak (Mr Manchikanti) - Curry-lover, Death Note lover (who doesn't love Death Note, especially L?), slightly psychopathic, gets the kick our of annoying people.

Aidan (Mr McInnes) - Computers, minecraft...Hufflepuff...

Julian (Mr Muntz) - Doesn't speak unless necessary, only really talks to Joseph, really good at soccer.

Athena (Miss Rozis) - Likes doing her hair in different ways (and it looks realllllyyyyy good), really pretty, smart, generallt quiet.

Amy (Miss Van) - A bit of a loud mouth, swears a lot, loves Zac Efron, cheese, selfies, ships Joseph and Shirley, is secretly intelligent.

Brigita (Miss Vladica) - Artistic, sporty, boy-magnet *wink wink*.

Arriken (Mr Worsley) - Parents named him after Anikan (or however you spell it) from Star Wars but decided that it was too silly, computer, minecraft, hoodies, and friends with Daniel Jiang.

Dihan (Mr Withanawasm) - Has a really long last name, generally nice, has skills with Latin.

Jerry (Mr Xu) - Computers, minecraft, math, chinese comedies.

* * *

Well hopefully you won't get confused now...


	4. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

The first class on Monday was Herbology.

Taskies, as a rule, were very good at destroying plants, but not very good at learning about them. Back in the day when they were still somewhat normal, gardening involved finding as many insects as you could, then letting the birds eat them. Otherwise, it was weeding, but not really weeding, as they always pulled out the wrong plants.

Unsurprisingly, a bunch of them surrounded Neville, some even taking notes, causing the poor boy to start hyperventilating.

The only person who was legitimately good at Herbology was Shirley, and possibly Joseph had he not started throwing Bubotuber pus at everyone. This surprised no one but the rest of Hogwarts – especially after all the explosions they had been rumored to cause. This was mainly due to a condition known as "Meeting Fred and George Weasley" – or rather, Joseph meeting Fred and George Weasley. One thing led to another.

You, see September 1st had been a Saturday.

They had met on Sunday – the day the school blew up.

Fortunately, Dumbledore was fairly good at fixing these things with the help of the protective wards. It had all been fixed that evening.

Luckily enough for 8S3, all the teachers loved them, so no detention for them, much to Fred and George's dismay. No one was entirely sure how all the teachers loved them, but they didn't see anything wrong with it.

Herbology was just a little hiccup. And tiny, really tiny, although it was a little unfortunate that they were dealing with Bubotubers.

Then the greenhouses blew up.

Dumbledore was a little angry after that.

But of course, he quickly forgave them, as they had sent him many, many, _MANY_ boxes of Chocolate Frogs.

Madam Pomfrey was slightly peeved, however. Of course, after Katrina had given her multiple healing spells and potion recipes that she had read about in "Bleach and The Half-Blood Prince", she forgave them entirely.

This sycophantic, yet destructive, nature of the students set the tone.

* * *

Blast-ended Skrewts.

They agreed with Hermione. Those vicious little things were nasty.

The only person who thought they were cute was Joseph, but that was only because he was Joseph. He seemed to share an obsession for strange and dangerous creatures with Hagrid. Fortunately, he did not share his stature – in fact, it was quite the opposite.

"Perhaps we could _imperius_ them..." Deepak suggested.

"I don't think that'd be a good idea," Karuna replied.

"Yeah but at least we won't end up dead."

"I know, but you know how long our curses last."

"Better the Blast-ended Skrewt than me, thank you very much."

Without doubt, that would never be a question. Harry, Ron, and interestingly enough, Draco, agreed with them. Hermione however, seemed to be happy to risk her neck for the sake of rules.

"But that's illegal!"

"Technically speaking, use of unforgivable curses is only illegal for use on fellow humans. Those...extraordinary creatures do not qualify."

Hermione gave a glare reminiscent of Metta and Karuna. Then turned to face the teacher.

"Hagrid, may we use the imperius curse on the Blast-ended Skrewts?"

Hagrid looked furious.

"No, Hermi'ne, yeh will not, yeh will safely deal wi' the skrewts."

Joseph also looked upset, if that were possible and turned to face the skrewts. One was attempting to blast off his toes. He gently blew out the small fire and began to try and force feed the animal.

Hermione looked bashful and tried to focus on feeding her own skrewt.

The rest of the lesson passed in attempts to avoid their clothes catching fire. Joseph gained Hagrid's approval, but the rest of 8S3 were quiet in the presence of the half-giant.

* * *

Interestingly enough, potions wasn't a disaster.

In fact, Professor Snape had even let them off homework. Why? Because Hieu had told him that he had swag. The conversation had been... well... tactless, yet incredibly hilarious. Who cares if the rest of Hogwarts didn't laugh?

"Miss Ly, what color is that?"

"Um...pink Professor."

"What color is it supposed to be?"

"A swagalicious green, sir."

"Correct. 10 points to Hufflepuff." Snape then paused, frowning. "And...if you would define that word...Miss Ellis?"

"The constant and ridiculous feeling of arrogance and presumptuous in relation to self esteem, sir."

The hook-nosed man stared at her for a moment. "Indeed, 5 points to Gryffindor."

Everyone gaped at him, Potter and posse included.

Alex looked like he wanted to start protesting. That wasn't swag at all!

* * *

It only took another week for them to finish year four. The teachers had been horrified, though quite please. However they agreed to do their exams at the end of term and continue being in fourth to appease Hermione.

Nerds they were. The harder the things were, the easier it seemed for 8S3 to master. The simplest of spells would become ridiculous, while the more complex ones were at around Dumbledore's level – something that worried the headmaster as he watched everyone's progress. Jinxes lasted for hours, simple charms caused chaos, and _Wingardium Leviosa_ turned feathers into complex flying machines, a feat which confused both Professors Flitwick and McGonagall.

The most popular subject was transfiguration. While the mainstream of Hogwarts struggled to turn hedgehogs into pincushions, 8S3 turned their desks into sheep to put their feet on. Professor McGonagall yelled at them for this: they should treat sheep with more respect, no matter how boring their previous occupations had been as tables.

* * *

Before they knew it, a month had passed and Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had turned up. The Triwizard Tournament was officially announced, and a bunch of people had put their names in it and the taskies found themselves bored on a Saturday afternoon.

Of course, every single one of them had already placed their name in the Goblet of Fire. In fact, that had been the first thing they all had done once Dumbledore had drawn the age line. Well, that was a lie. They had forced Imogen to place her name in the cup, threatening her with being disowned from 8S3. Besides, she figured if she was forced to put her name in, she wouldn't be selected. Also, doing really dangerous stuff was overrated. She could be killed, for instance.

When Halloween finally turned up, there was a great sense of excitement everywhere but the taskie table.

"They seem to be very excited," Jerry said.

"Well, they don't know what's going to happen," Kartiya replied. "We're all just amazing that way."

"True, why aren't we interested in who from our house is selected?"

"Because we're very patient."

"Yeah." Arriken interjected.

"Do you think we could play this lot at Quidditch?" Imogen asked.

"Oi, focus on the plot point at hand...and I wonder why Dumbledore didn't ban Quidditch this time...?"

"That would be because we arrived and protested."

The feast finally finished (at least for Potter and co.) and Dumbledore stepped to the fore.

"So now, for the school champions. It should happen any minute now..."

The goblet coughed and spluttered and a burnt piece of paper floated in the air until Dumbledore plucked it from the air.

"From Durmstrang... Viktor Krum."

The process repeated several times.

"The Beauxbatons...Fleur Delacour... and finally...from Hogwarts...Cedric Diggory!"

The Hufflepuff table exploded into cheers.

Dumbledore paused. "Ah, yes, the other school..." The paper fluttered and he caught it. "Hmm... Harry Potter. Well, YOLO. Mr Potter?"

Madame Maxime and Karkaroff stood up, angry.

"It's fine. He's only a fourth year, he won't win," Dumbledore assured them, but not really doing a good job. He then turned back to the goblet.

"And from 8S3...Alex Steinmeyer."

The other teachers were looking really worried, but Dumbledore shushed them. Bartemius Crouch spoke. "So...five champions, I believe the most ever supposed to turn up in a Triwizard Tournament. We have also ruined the Latin." He then cleared his throat. "The first task is designed to test your daring, so we will not be telling you what it is. Courage in face of the unknown is an important quality of a wizard...very important."

* * *

It was rainy that next Saturday. The Quidditch schedule had been quickly dismantled and been replaced with two games on the weekend. That Saturday it was 8S3 v Durmstrang, and the day after be Gryffindor v Beauxbatons. 8S3's Quidditch house allocations meant that the house teams could borrow 8S3 members if they weren't playing them.

Fred and George Weasley spent the day making a bit of petty cash offering odds on Durmstrang and 8S3. Simply put, 8S3 weren't supposed to have a hope in hell. Some did try their luck, though, based purely on their mad skill everywhere else. But taskies are stereotyped as bad at sport and Hogwarts agreed.

Until the match started, of course.

* * *

It was a shock for everyone.

Seven people walked out of the change rooms sporting black Quidditch robes and holding firebolts. It caused everyone to stop their chattering a just stare, and stare, and stare.

Some say Ronald Weasley yelled "mental" approximately 79 times.

Though to be fair, Durmstrang started well – really well.

Ten minutes into the game, the chasers of 8S3 had scored only 8 goals.

Durmstrang still lead by 100 points. Though honestly speaking, they were international Quidditch players. 8S3 were just...8S3.

Gergiev got one of the goals back, and then Hristova decided to shoot a goal as well before a beater, Vasilev aimed a bludger at Imogen and hit her plumb on the forehead. She fell off her broom and Petrova scored another two.

There was a quick scramble and Madam Hooch called timeout.

Dan was quickly summoned to the touchline. Madam Hooch was going very red in the face, however.

"You can't summon your reserve keeper until your first keeper is declared unfit!" She barked.

"Do you declare her unfit?"

"Madam Hooch, she's out cold." Deepak suggested lazily.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING DOWN THERE?! GET BACK YOUR ASS BACK UP HERE DEEPAK!" Katrina yelled.

Deepak shrugged and shot an annoyed look up at Katrina then remounted his broom.

Madam Hooch stared unconvincingly at Imogen, "Very well. Mr Bruce, you are on. Mr Lew, take Ellis to hospital wing."

Joseph had a quick moan about not being able to see the rest of the match and levitated Imogen in the general direction of Hogwarts.

"Right! Let play continue!" Madam Hooch roared so loudly that Metta nearly dropped the Quaffle.

To save herself the embarrassment of almost dropping the Quaffle, she passed it to Karuna who then back to Katrina. Durmstrang came at them, but Alex leveled a well aimed bludger at them.

But somehow, even after all their efforts, Durmstrang still managed to get the Quaffle. As they were about to land a goal, Harry's well placed bludger hit the Quaffle to the other end of the stadium, and right through the opposite hoop. He celebrated appropriately.

Katrina then called for a time out and the team had a mid-air huddle.

"Deepak, we're down by more than a hundred points! You need to get the snitch! Fast!"

"I can't see it! And their reserve seeker is mean and has no grace!"

Katrina shrugged. "Since when did you require gracefulness from the opposition to beat them? Use your goddamn contact song!"

Deepak nodded. "Can we just defend until I see the snitch?"

"Park the bus?"

"Hmmm...yeah."

"No, we want to play interesting Quidditch."

"We also want to win. Beaters, at least try and hit the Bludgers in their general direction and Metta, Karuna?"

"Yes?"

"Try not to have siblingly arguments."

Karuna glared. Metta whacked Katrina on the shoulder.

"Thank God you two aren't Beaters. Let's try not to get too much into the ridiculous pep talk. We shall... you know... beat Durmstrang. HWAITING!"

"Hwaiting...?"

"K-pop reference. Don't worry."

They flew up into the sky, and as Madam Hooch blew the whistle, Deepak started off with his song. "CONTACT! CONTACT! CON-CON-CON-CON-CONTACT! CONTACT! CONTACT! CON-CON-CON-CON-CONTACT!"

Several broken bones, a slight concussion and a bloody nose later...Deepak crashed through a dozen players to capture the snitch (an extraordinary feat, considering that there are only fourteen players on a Quidditch pitch at a time). There was some light, appreciative applause from the 8S3 end, some moaning from Durmstrang and a happy Deepak holding the snitch aloft, saying, "So, next week, we're screwed, right?"

Most of Hogwarts glared as they handed over promised gold to Fred and George. The twins then handed out very large sums of money to a variety of confident taskies.

Meanwhile, Krum stalked off with Karkaroff, who seemed extremely miffed that they had lost to a group of clinically insane students. They spoke in rapid Bulgarian. The rest of the team followed sheepishly behind the two.

* * *

There was a party in the Chamber of Secrets afterwards. The house elves were very obliging in terms of food and drink and they felt no obligation to return to Hogwarts any time soon.

"I'm a little disturbed to see that none of us actually care about the fact that there is a dead basilisk beside us," Aidan said, indicating to the corpse that had yet to decay.

"I know..." Julian said, speaking for what was probably the first time since arriving in Harry-Potter-Land.

"Well at least it'd make good potion ingredients." Jerry said.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS JERRY? Who the hell likes potions anyway?" Amy said. The majority of the class raised their hands.

"Traitors! I'm not talking to you guys anymore."

"You can't get out without Shirley," Hieu pointed out. "Unless you can either teleport like Katrina or fly...or speak snake."

"Parseltongue." Daniel corrected.

"Shut up Daniel! It's all hissy and swaggy so it's snake language."

"No! It's Parseltongue!"

Hieu then threw a cream pie at Daniel, who was hit straight in the face.

"FOOD FIGHT!" the rest of them yelled.

* * *

By the time Dumbledore came looking for them it was 3AM, and the mutilated basilisk's corpse had a dozen students snoozing on it. Joseph was desperately trying to drag it out for respect's sake. The headmaster surveyed the bizarre scene.

"It was only a Quidditch match, 8S3." He said softly.

A few heads jerked and a few eyes opened. Though keen on staying up late, taskies did like sleep...on occasion.

"Perhaps you should return to your dormitories." It was a suggestion, rather than a demand.

"If you can get them out of the basilisk!" Joseph yelled shrilly. A few people groaned.

"Shut the fuck up Joseph..." someone mumbled.

"And Professor, how did you get into the Chamber? You aren't a Parselmouth..."

"On the contrary Mr Lew, I simply blasted the door open."

Joseph gaped. "You blasted...the door...open? Don't tell Shirley...or she'll offer you up as a sacrifice to Voldemort."

"Do not worry Mr Lew. I rearranged the pieces of the door and fixed it. No one will have noticed."

"Thank goodness for that."

"Now, regarding the basilisk, I would think that you could simply remove them through your extraordinary powers, Mr Lew." Dumbledore said, a little surprised that Joseph had yet to magically levitate his class mates off.

Joseph glared at him. "I tried, but I broke one of the vertebrae." He gestured towards a crack in the spine next to where Amity was snoozing.

Dumbledore looked at him skeptically. "Well, if I might..." He gently lowered the taskies, one by one, onto the cold floor. "Now, perhaps we might return to the surface."

Joseph shrugged.

* * *

The next day, Rita Skeeter turned up at Hogwarts.

"Professor Snape, we need Harry and Alex upstairs," a breathless Colin Creevey declared on a Friday afternoon in potions.

"The class is only half-over, they will go after this class finished." Snape replied.

"But Professor, they need them now! It's for some photo shoot..."

"Very well, Potter, be prepared to take the antidote test next week. Steinmeyer, finish your antidote on Monday." Snape snapped. Draco had forced the bad mood on him by knocking over a cauldron of acidic Veritaserum onto the dungeon floor. Though one assumed that it would just give wet feet, it instead turned acidic and started melting the cobbled floor. Snape took ten points from Slytherin (shocking everyone) after it melted half of the store cupboard and several shoes.

Alex and Harry nodded and exited the room, leaving behind the bottom of their trainers.

Collin led them to an upstairs classroom where Rita Skeeter, Ollivander and the other champions waited.

*A.N. _Technically speaking, Harry is fourteen, turning fifteen next July, meaning that he would've been born in 1998 if the time had been changed.*_

Skeeter then turned to Alex. "So, Alex, a whole new school. Tell me about that."

Alex went bright red. "Well...we were teleported here by Katrina and... and Dumbledore accepted us and we timed it for the Triwizard Tournament."

"And the goblet of fire, selected you?" Skeeter was surprised, if that was even possible in the first place.

"We were declared as a fourth school, so it chose from our ranks. Harry's story is much more interesting."

Skeeter turned back to Harry, the Quick Quotes Quill struggling to free itself from her bag.

"Err... Miss Skeeter, could you not use the Quick Quotes Quill, please." Harry asked nervously.

It was now Skeeter's turn to look uncomfortable. "It's just an easier way of jotting down notes, dear."

"Yes, but it severely alters our actual dialogue and makes the interviews a lot more melodramatic and forced than they actually are." Alex responded, his taskieish cheek returning.

Skeeter frowned. "Are you a connoisseur of my work?"

Alex hesitated. "I wouldn't say so, but the actually explanation is very complicated, so I think it'd be best if we just returned to your interview highlighting how shallow we are," he continued helpfully. "Moreover, before you say anything, Harry is actually the second youngest member entering Triwizard Tournament."

Skeeter just glared at him. "So, Harry, the SECOND youngest champion, what made you enter."

"I didn't..."

"Come now, Harry, you don't have to lie to me, the interview can be... confidential if you like."

"Yes, only you and the rest of your sycophantic readers can know." Alex interjected.

"Excuse me, Mr Steinmeyer, but if you can't keep... quiet then I'm afraid that you must leave."

Alex shrugged. "It is a double interview, after all."

Skeeter gave up on the contrary taskie and went on. "But, Harry, why did you decide to enter?"

"I didn't enter. Someone put my name in the cup."

"Oh come now Harry! There are no secrets between us."

Alex was getting quite frustrated. "Look, I know who put Harry's name in the cup, but it'll ruin the plot if I tell. So, just try believing Harry and get on to something else, i.e. me."

Harry suddenly turned to Alex. "You know who put my name into the Goblet of Fire?"

"Yes..."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it would ruin the plot."

"Are they planning to kill me?"

"Yes."

Harry gaped. "But...Voldemort could hit me with a killing curse."

"Listen, Harry, Voldemort hitting you with a killing curse would not hurt you."

"What?!"

"Oh, well, it might give you one or two bruises..."

"Alex..."

Skeeter cleared her throat loudly. The two boys spun around.

"If we might continue with the interview..."

"By all means." Alex said facetiously.

"Wait!"

"Harry, it won't do you any harm. Just be patient and everything will be ok."

Though Alex knew that this didn't actually happen, even if he and the rest of 8S3 would try to fix it, he wouldn't mind having a chat about the Triwizard Tournament with Rita.

"So, Alex, why did you enter?"

"Because...I'm a complete show off of a Gryffindor who's brave, but wants glory and stuff."

Skeeter shook her head.

"So Mr Steinmeyer, you and the rest of your school...how do you think they feel? Are they jealous of you being chosen? Do they envy you?"

"Probably not since we get to risk our lives as entertainment for them with the possibility for making a bit of cash. Now that I think about it, I'm a bit worried."

Skeeter scribbled something onto her notepad and stared at Alex. "And, Mr Potter, are you envied?"

"Most of the school hates me for one reason or another," Harry admitted. "I don't think that this is exactly a blessing."

"So we have two opposites here!"

"Noooo..." Alex said immediately. "We're not in the Triwizard Tournament for popularity. I'm in it for the eternal glory thing and I have other ulterior motives, while Harry is here because Voldemort wants him dead. Crap. I've said too much."

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" Rita had already started scribbling furiously on her notepad.

At that moment, Dumbledore stepped into the room.

"Mr Potter, Steinmeyer, I must interrupt. Mr Ollivander is here."

"To do what?" Alex asked, momentarily forgetting the chapter's name.

"To weigh your wand, Mr Steinmeyer; to check that it is in working order."

"Oh, right, yeah."

Dumbledore led them out of the rather small broom cupboard into the empty classroom.

A disgruntled Krum (his constant look), an impatient Fleur and an interested Ollivander awaited them.

"WAIT!" Skeeter cried. "Photos! We need photos!" Cedric Diggory was just coming through.

"Miss Skeeter, if you could be a little patient. Mr Ollivander must check their wands, and then we may have photos."

"But, Dumbledore..."

"Rita."

The journalist sniffed and waited impatiently in the corner of the room.

Ollivander motioned towards Fleur. "Well, ladies first."

He went through each wand carefully, each passing his muster. Finally he looked to Alex.

"Ah, yes a more recent one of mine. A personal favorite from this year...hmmm...yes, still in the same shape, though some powerful magic does seem to have been performed. Are you sure that you can manage such a thing?"

Alex smiled winningly. "Absolutely."

Ollivander 'hmmm'ed again before waving the wand, causing bright gold swirls to form the word "YOLO" and "SWAG".

"Very well, they are all in perfect order, though some," he looked sparingly at Harry, "are not the wands I would have selected."

Skeeter breathed a sigh of impatience. "Now, photos, Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore considered comparing her to a three year old, or Joseph for the matter, but paused and allowed himself a sigh. "Very well, Rita. Just a few, then."

Skeeter laughed as though to say "not bloody likely", and proceeded to instruct her photographer as to how she wanted the champions to be presented.

After Harry had been dragged to the front constantly by Rita, then placed at the back by the photographer who wanted Fleur at the front, Alex threw his hands in the air and pushed the photographer and Skeeter aside so he stood at the front.

"Compromise!" he yelled obnoxiously, just to make Skeeter that little bit more annoyed. He then dragged Harry to the front, and sat Fleur in the only chair with Cedric and Krum at the back. Finally, he plopped himself on the floor and magically conjured his clarinet.

"NOW you make take the picture."

Rita Skeeter groaned.

* * *

"What'd I miss?" Harry asked Hermione during dinner. Hermione shifted papers around before looking up. "We have a potions essay on..."

As she listed the homework they had been given, Harry looked at the Slytherin table, where Alex was sitting. At first, he had thought that he was insane, but now the more he thought about it, the taskies were like their own little house. In fact, Harry was sure that if given the option, they would actually try to create their own house if the thought had yet to occur. The Gryffindors tolerated the Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin taskies, while the Hufflepuffs tolerated the other houses and so on. It was interesting to see that no one from Slytherin had yet to go attack a _Gryffindor _who sat at their table.

"Oi Harry. Are you listening?" Hermione snapped her fingers in front of his eyes.

"Y-yeah..."

"What are you looking at?"

Harry turned to face her. "Don't you find it odd that none of the Slytherins have attacked Alex yet? I mean, look at Malfoy! He's actually making conversation with him and the Hufflepuff."

"That's Aidan." Hermione said.

"I knew that. Just...don't you find it odd?" Harry asked exasperatedly.

Hermione thought for a moment. "Well...I suppose they're really their own house. If you look, they don't care for house prejudice and to them, they're just sitting on a table with their friends."

"It still looks strange..."

"Actually I was going to go sit with Karuna to discuss some Arithmancy homework." Hermione then stood, collected her papers that had been scattered over the dining table and headed to the Ravenclaw table. Harry was left, mouth opened slightly, staring after his friend.

"Okay then," he muttered to himself. "Since Ron is being a complete arse, I'll just go sit with the Slytherins." He then shook his head at how insane it sounded. He would likely be murdered on the spot, and then Professor Snape would give him detention for being...him. Wonderful, really. But now he thought about it, it wasn't really a bad idea... At least there would be another Gryffindor with him, and he was sure that the taskies wouldn't let the other Slytherins bully him...right?


	5. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

_*A.N. This chapter consists of articles from the Daily Prophet regarding us, Harry and Alex. Please enjoy!*_

The Return of the Triwizard Tournament

By Rita Skeeter, Hogwarts Correspondent

_It has been centuries since the last Triwizard Tournament, a disastrous affair involving two first year witches' deaths and a runaway troll. The Ministry of Magic's decision to return the event to the calendar has been met with some criticism and even fear by the members of the magical community. However, it could even be described as farcical after a turn of events that would shock even the most relaxed witch or wizard: the five school champions._

_The Triwizard Tournament was originally a magical contest held between the three largest wizarding schools of Europe: __Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry__, Durmstrang Institute, and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, each school being represented by one Champion. Selected Champions compete in three tasks - traditionally judged by the Headmasters or Headmistresses of the competing schools - designed to test magical ability, intelligence and courage. Champions compete for the honor and glory of winning the Tournament and for the Triwizard Cup and a monetary prize. The first Tournament was held in 1294. _

_Headlined by the already world-famous Harry Potter, the five champions include International Quidditch Champion Viktor Krum and Veela descendant Fleur Delacour. Hufflepuff student Cedric Diggory and, the strangest story of the tournament, Alexander Steinmeyer, completes the quintuplet. What could now be referred to as the Pentwizard Tournament, has turned into ridicule. Four schools, five champions and two controversial stories. I sat down with Potter and Steinmeyer to discuss their acrimonious circumstances of entry. _

_"I entered because I wanted fame and fortune and to be popular." Steinmeyer admits, though you couldn't tell it through the casual tone of his voice._

_"I didn't enter." Potter insists. Though Steinmeyer constantly backs him up, it feels as though Potter is hiding something deep and dark. At one point, Steinmeyer lets slip that he knows the circumstances of Potter's entry, even suggesting that being hit with an illegal killing curse would only bruise Potter. "I know who put your name in the Triwizard Cup and yes they are trying to kill you." He goes on. "But I won't reveal it because it'll spoil the plot."_

_Well, this journalist is certainly not fooled and has reason to believe that Steinmeyer may be a follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, hoping constantly for his return. In fact, it would not be a low blow to suggest that the whole "school" that is 8S3 is in fact a select few of his most trusted and fanatical followers, deluded into thinking that he will return. But just to put icing on the cake, Steinmeyer let one final secret out on his way out, implying that Harry Potter is in fact one of the homosexual persuasion. But we may need to brew some Veritaserum to find out._

* * *

Rita Skeeter Discusses the Allegations Made Against 8S3 in an exclusive interview with the class.

_As I enter a deserted classroom, I am greeted with the mediocre sight that is 8S3. There is nothing special that meets the eye, nothing even vaguely sinister. But they all contain a dark secret that they are seemingly happy to discuss. The quiet chatter dies down as a shorter boy says: "...McGonagall still hasn't forgiven us."_

_"She isn't the forgiving type."_

_"Shut up, the Queen of Slander is here."_

_I am curious. They don't seem worried about my sudden appearance, contrary to general reaction, but are almost sick of the sight of me. I suggest that we begin. There is a quiet chuckle and then that same short boy says: "For you to twist our words, alter our statements and paint a wholly negative picture of us? Why not?"_

_I was taken aback, but I decided to leave it in print to contradict the statement and briskly change the subject._

_"Have you been reading the articles?"_

_"Of course, what wonderful descriptions of our character and intelligence. They are the most extraordinary works of fiction I've read since J.K. Rowling." Imogen said dryly._

_"I don't think…"_

_"Do you want to talk about us or not?"_

_"Yes…"_

_"Well, hurry up then!"_

_"Do you follow He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"_

_There was a contradictory chorus. While some blatantly denied the accusation, others nodded and some facetiously yelled out declarations of their love for Dumbledore, though one did begin a rant describing his worship for the Dark Lord._

_They were divided, unlike how many others described them. Perhaps opinions on You-Know-Who were so contrary that what was once a tightly knit group has come undone. Perhaps the effects of the once-great sorcerer were taking their toll. "We have mixed opinions on Voldy, though we do think he's a psychopath." Joseph Lew provides, he was the one who was ranting earlier._

_What is more interesting is the majority of Slytherin students. Eleven in total, with only three Gryffindors, including the recalcitrant girl who wasn't even in the original class. They are coupled with seven Ravenclaws and five Hufflepuffs. "Our class tends to be sensible enough, but with a certain amount of logic and madness," Harrison Black, a significantly taller Slytherin continues._

_The class has indeed proved their madness, destroying, or attempting to destroy Professor Minerva McGonagall's office, Gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid's hut, the Greenhouses and the majority of the main castle. Somehow the teachers of Hogwarts still have a soft spot for these students. "Oh, we've just used the imperius curse on Dumbledore." Karuna provides, one of the dangerously indiscernible twins. The other twin, Metta, takes a different approach. "There is some form of madness, within us and the teachers. I think they're round the twist to be perfectly honest." _

_Sometimes flouted as the greatest students at Hogwarts since Dumbledore, the twins appear to be deeply ingrained with Voldemort. "The day they get into trouble, the world will end." Katrina Chen provides, describing their extraordinary power._

_The tall Slytherin girl is widely regarded to be the leader of the group, along with the Triwizard Tournament entrant, Alexander Steinmeyer. Steinmeyer is now widely believed to be a dark Gryffindor, maintaining the famed house's quality, but with a sinister side that makes any self-respecting Gryffindor shudder._

_Chen and Steinmeyer are the most deeply ingrained in the Dark Lord's circles. They have seemingly forced the class into following the path in which there is no letting go. We can only hope that Steinmeyer does not win the Triwizard Tournament or all hell will break loose. _

* * *

_Agents of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_

Daily Prophet Exclusive

_Are the surprise entrants of the Triwizard Tournament really worshippers of the Dark Lord?_

_When you first meet the school that is 8S3, there isn't much to the eye. They look like an average bunch of fourteen year old students, bored, tired and frustrated with how easy their life is. They're nicknamed taskies. Why? No one is entirely sure, perhaps a name that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named thought he could refer to them as. _

_What, You-Know-Who? Yes. This reporter has reason to believe that the mysterious class, currently enrolled at Hogwarts, are minions of the wizard who hasn't been seen for fourteen years. _

_"Everyone seems to like them, there must be something going on." International Quidditch Player Viktor Krum says. Representing Durmstrang for the Triwizard tournament, Krum disapproves of 8S3. "They have no business being here, I believe that some of them are even involved with Grindelwald or You-Know-Who."_

_The evidence is damning. 8S3's Triwizard entrant, Alexander Steinmeyer, has even let slip that Voldemort "hitting [Harry Potter] with a killing curse wouldn't do him any damage". However, Potter and the rest of Hogwarts have befriended the strange group, endangering themselves even more._

_"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with them, they're just a bunch of really nice kids who've been marooned at Hogwarts. They're not too bad at magic, so we don't see any problem with them." Fourth year Draco Malfoy has clearly been brainwashed by the Worshippers of the Dark Lord. Even saying that they're "not too bad at magic" is a clear misunderstanding. According to Potter himself, the group completely outdoes Hogwarts in terms of magical power. There are even suggestions that the most powerful among them are stronger than Dumbledore._

_"There's something strange about those twins." Durmstrang student Nadia Hristova confides. "I overheard them arguing about who was who's teddy bear in the corridor once, and since when did Muggle born students become so good at Quidditch?" The twins in question, Metta and Karuna Chalapati are seen as the two most fanatical followers of You-Know-Who with powers beyond measure; they are seen as stronger than Dumbledore in some subjects – having the ability to transfigure objects with just a thought is merely a small portion of what they can do. _

_"I mean, really, how are they that powerful after only learning magic for a summer, accelerated? Or...evil?" Hristova continues. "I wouldn't be surprised. Nobody's that good that fast."_

_Or are they? A class of brilliant talent, somehow finding their way into the circles of the Boy Who Lived, entering into the Triwizard Tournament and knowing secrets that are far beyond what a normal student goes through. The question is how long will it be before Potter and the rest of Hogwarts mysteriously end up dead?_

* * *

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DANIEL JIANG

Rita Skeeter meets close associate of Alex Steinmeyer, Daniel Jiang, a boy who has been changed by the Dark Lord.

_When faced with the possibility of interviewing someone as clearly mad as Daniel Jiang, I did wonder what the point of the interview was, but then I read an anonymous source's take on the 8S3 mystery and decided to give it my best. _

_As with the rest of 8S3, I found Daniel Jiang to be nothing out of the ordinary. A student of Hogwarts age, a little bored, a lot weird. Jiang is waiting for me, though you wouldn't think it and when I entered the room, he first shouted out "GRETAAAA" in his strange, sing-song voice. His eyes faded and he looked at me more closely. "You're not Greta!"_

_I frowned, confused and quickly set the Quick Quotes Quill to work; this was going to take effort._

_"No," I confessed. "I'm not." He looked fairly downcast._

_"Who is Greta?" I continued, trying to find an angle._

_"I don't know." He still looked very sad._

_"Well, can we start the interview then?"_

_Jiang was driven mad by the Dark Lord, I can tell. His strange eyes, weird interruptions, and constant mood swings suggest that he alone did not worship You-Know-Who, but instead fought back and was mentally wounded. Though I attempted to find out more, I could not prevail._

_"Ok..."_

_"So, how did you get to Hogwarts, Daniel?" I ask softly._

_"We ran away from Miss Czerfyis!" He yelled back, suddenly upbeat._

_"Why did you run away from Miss Czerfyis, Daniel?"_

_"Because she was attacking Harrison!"_

_Perhaps he was too scared to directly say what had happened with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named._

_"Was it the Cruciatus Curse?" I ask, suddenly switching tack._

_"What's a Cruciatus Curse?"_

_"Did she torture you?"_

_"Noooooo...she just liked homework."_

_I am shocked. Homework? You-Know-Who gave out homework. I feel that I am beginning to get something out of this poor damaged boy._

_"Daniel, you can talk to me, you are safe here." _

_"Gretaaaaa…"_

_That name again, as though it means something._

_"Daniel, who was Greta?"_

_"And Katrina took us..."_

_Katrina was someone in their school. The ringleader, perhaps? The one that forced them into the worship of You-Know-Who? Along with Steinmeyer and the twins...Perhaps there is more to their mindless fanaticism then we once feared. _

_"What did Katrina do to you?"_

_"I don't know!"_

_"Who's Katrina, Daniel?"_

_"I don't know."_

_There is a tear falling from Daniel's eye, showing the ghost of a terrible past, something that cannot be touched. Something that not even I can get to._

_"Who's the Dark Lord, Daniel?" I try for a different tack again._

_"Old Moldy? I don't know."_

_And now I really am shocked, to hear something so casual from this boy's mouth, something really has happened. But no one will be able to find out what until someone else is brave enough to come forward._

_"Daniel...have you met Vold– Voldemort?"_

_"Noooooo..."_

_"Who is Greta?"_

_"Nooooo..."_

_I finish the interview, feeling that I had tried to pry enough out of this poor, psychologically damaged boy._

* * *

THE CHALAPATI TWINS – STRONGEST WITCHES IN OUR GENERATION

_I met the Chalapati twins in the middle of an argument. They were attempting to put on a pair of muggle headphones and laughing at each other at intervals. When I announced my presence, one declared "I'm sorry, she's just stupid." The other gave a glare that could freeze lava and passed them back. The alternate one struggled and repeated the phrase in exactly the same manner. Had I been blind, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. It was an appropriate introduction to the two strongest witches of a generation._

_They introduced themselves as their companion, Katrina Chen, entered the room. The taller one with the spot was also the younger one, Karuna, while Metta was shorter and a minute older. I was soon to learn of their rivalry, declaring each other to be the only people they actually hated._

_The twins Chalapati are dwarfed by their larger companion, who proceeds to hug them. It is clear that their friendship is a close one._

_It is tentatively that I suggest we begin._

_"Do you... er insult each other much?"_

_Karuna and Metta are close, but not in an obvious way. They constantly insult each other, commenting on voices, facial aspects and intelligence to which end causes Chen no end of mirth. She them confides in me that to tell a twin joke is suicidal in their presence – or at all for that matter._

_Dangerous twins._

_A demonstration of magical strength follows. Chen blasts a hole in the classroom after attempting to "shoot" Metta... Karuna... whichever. The other twin repairs it instantly while a corporeal patronus is produced almost lazily._

_Another patronus joins it and then a third. They begin to talk._

_"We're not bad at magic." One suggests while another goes on "Bang, you don't quite die" and the final finishes. "Yeah, we're not good at magic at all, Metta."_

_When they let the patronuses lapse, I turned to the people who conjured them who looked almost bored._

_"What's the happy thought?" I ask._

_"Not having to get shot by Katrina for no apparent reason." One says._

_"Oh, really smart, brilliant thinking, Metta." Karuna continues._

_"Telling a twin joke." _

_And suddenly there was another example of that terrible, basilisk-like glare._

_"So, who's glare is more deadly?" I ask before Chen dies._

_They turn the glare on to me, I can film its extraordinary power behind those terrifying sets of eyes._

_"Let's change the subject..." Katrina says, the constant politician._

_Just in case the conversation hadn't been broken up enough, a blond haired boy walked in. I turned the microphone on him. _

_"Mr Malfoy, what are your opinions on these three?"_

_"Chen's a Slytherin, so she's fine. The other two are just scary."_

_Malfoy sneers in my general direction. "I'd leave them alone if I was you. These ones are... dangerous." A sudden conversation breaks out between the three girls._

_Malfoy then smiles. "I think the coverage has been excellent, Miss Skeeter. Slytherin house has never encountered such extraordinary pupils."_

_"And what are your thoughts on these people?"_

_"I'm very worried, they seemed fairly normal, but the newspapers have... dished the dirt."_

_"But have you ever seen such a dangerous Ravenclaw?"_

_"Ravenclaws tend to be logical and intelligent. This one... is scary."_

_"And the belief that the world would explode if they got into difficulty?"_

_"I wouldn't be surprised. She's much more... excitable than her sister. I fear for everyone's safety should anything befall them."_

_The younger Chalapati looks incredulous. "You'd sooner destroy the world, Malfoy."_

_Draco smiles._

_"I think not, I don't have the marks for it."_

_Karuna raises her eyebrows and glares at him. A short temper is evident, patience at a premium. The civilized world should be worried should they evenly vaguely annoy her. There is an evil glint in her eye, a casual feeling of power and strength. Nothing like this can be seen in her twin. She has been convinced by You-Know-Who._

_"Voldemort is none of your concern, Skeeter." She snarls. _

_And Malfoy is right. I should be worried for my livelihood. To annoy Karuna Chalapati is to flirt with death. Finally we have found our ringleader, Chen is just a lieutenant. Karuna is the dangerous one._


	6. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

8S3 were feeling strangely happy.

After the first few articles in the paper a day ago, more and more articles were popping up about them everywhere. Almost everyone in Hogwarts was seen with a copy of the Daily Prophet. Even the Quibbler had many articles about how the students were really shape-shifters from the world of Star Trek. Of course, (and thankfully for them), they still believed that the new students were much too insane to be followers of You-Know-Who. In the students' mind, it was utterly ridiculous and whoever had written the articles should go jump off a building, simply because it was much too ridiculous.

The Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, however, had decided to take action.

"What is the meaning of this, Dumbledore? I am to hear from many sources that there is a group of fanatical followers of the Dark Lord currently attending Hogwarts?"

**"**I do not understand what you are babbling about, Cornelius." Dumbledore said.

"You are housing followers of the He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!" Fudge's face was slowly turning red. "Do you know what kind of risk this is to the magical community?"

"I assure you Cornelius, they are perfectly _ordinary."_

"Don't try to fool me Dumbledore! What is this of these twins that are said to be more powerful than you are?"

"Cornelius, if you would be kind enough to take a seat, I will explain this..._situation_."

This seemed to pacify the Minister a little.

"Very well then Dumbledore, but I want to know everything about these..._children_."

Dumbledore settled down in his heavily cushioned chair. Old age...

"I am sure that you are aware of 8S3's destruction?"

"Of course I am, Dumbledore! I am the Minister of Magic!"

The Minister got up and started pacing. "Karuna and Metta Chalapti...yes, am I correct to assume that they achieved full marks in the first, second and third year exam within a month?"

"You do not err there."

"Yes, yes, now of this Daniel Jiang. According to my sources, I am to hear that he has been driven mad by You-Know-Who."

Dumbledore looked up in surprise. "Mr Jiang? He is just as normal as the other students of 8S3."

Fudge thrust a copy of the Daily Prophet at Dumbledore, open on the page of Daniel's interview.

"What do you think of this then? You cannot deny it!"

The headmaster glanced over the paper without really properly looking over it.

"I have already read this, Cornelius. I must say, these articles are all incredibly inaccurate."

"So you're saying that they are followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"

Dumbledore laughed. "This is a group of exceedingly innocent children, Cornelius. The articles tell of their power, but not of their loyalty."

"But what about this section?" Fudge said, pointing to a part in the article. "Steinmeyer even said it himself!"

"Mr Steinmeyer is a flippant boy, a brave and courageous one, but facetious to say the least."

"They're all facetious Dumbledore! All of them!"

"Then we can rest assured that nothing that they say has any sinister meaning, Cornelius."

"W-what?"

"If they are all indeed facetious, then we can believe that nothing they say is in fact, meaningful."

"I want you to expel them, Dumbledore." Fudge said it softly, as though he was almost scared to utter it in Dumbledore's presence. Dumbledore turned to face him, the twinkle in his eyes gone.

"Don't be ridiculous, Fudge."

"I'm dead serious, Dumbledore. I want them gone. They're a danger to the school and the magical community."

"The magical community would be safer if they were to reside here. I doubt you would want a class of these...powerful students roaming around England."

Fudge paled considerably before turning red.

"Send them back to where they came from...Albania or whatever."

"That is out of the questions! The Australian school has been destroyed by some unknown force. What is to say that they will not come back?

"Don't tell me they can apparate, Dumbledore?" Fudge laughed. "Or they could take a muggle airplane."

"If you talk to Miss Chen, I believe you will find an explanation."

"She's a ringleader, knowing their power, she would kill me."

"I assure you, Fudge, she is quite..." Dumbledore stopped, waiting for an appropriate word, "Mad," he finished lamely.

"Then why on Earth are you telling me to have a conversation with her?" Dumbledore shrugged.

"She's quite a good conversationist," He paused. "And excellent vocabulary, though I will have to remind you not to anger her. She has a good list of insults."

"Such as?" Fudge was intrigued.

"I believe when Mr Crabbe tried to curse Miss Ellis, she hit him with the bat-bogey hex before pinning on the floor, then called him a 'fucking idiotic chicken' whatever that meant."

"I think I'll steer clear of this...imaginative child," Fudge finished.

"Beware of her jellyfish dance as well. It is...contagious."

"Contagious!?"

"Yes, she seems to use it during lapses in conversation and the majority of the class is quite happy to imitate the... action."

"What does it look like Dumbledore?"

The headmaster stopped and thought for a moment, before mimicking Katrina's jellyfish dance. "Something like this I believe."

"I think... I may need to esc... I mean... exit the school before it's too late."

"Stop by for another cup of tea soon will you?"

Fudge rushed to the door. "And don't let it hit you on the way out." Dumbledore muttered under his breath.

* * *

Hermione was in the library with Harry when she heard two pairs of footsteps approaching.

"Hi Hermione, Harry." Metta said.

"Hello Karuna? Or is it Metta?"

"Karuna has the dot on her face."

"And she's taller." The other twin provided. Metta glared at her for a few seconds.

"Isn't that...dangerous?" Hermione asked.

"Been reading Rita Skeeter?"

She blushed. "It was in the Prophet, but we don't believe any of it of course."

Harry scowled. "Yet they believe all that junk about me."

"I liked the article about you being homosexual." Karuna added.

"You did!?" Harry said incredulously.

"Yes, best bit of fictional writing since Lance Armstrong's autobiography."

"Who...what?'

"It doesn't matter."

Suddenly Imogen appeared between bookshelves, making a nearby Madam Pince growl.

"Oh, yes, the greatest work of fiction since Tony Abbott declared that all issues within the liberal party come back to him."

"Who's Tony Abbott?"

"Mr. Rabbit?" Harry asked, confused.

"It doesn't actually concern you, so I wouldn't be too worried."

"But it's a good line."

"I know right. Mr. Rabbit..."

"Abbott."

"RABBIT!"

"Whatever."

"So..."

"Okay let's go before we make these two feel more awkward than they already are."

"Wait, what were we doing here?"

"Warning them not to leave the library. Deepak met Fred and George."

"So, why are we leaving the library?"

"Because we need to go warn the others."

"Ah, but won't we end up...endangered if we do?"

"Nah. Hieu worked out how to do that force field thingy charm remember?"

"So...why don't we give it to these unfortunate people?"

"Because it's a NEWT level spell," Hermione provided.

"Ah."

"Well then, we'll take our leave now."

"Good luck and try not to die."

"Yes, yes we need you alive you know?"

"With our luck we'll get killed by Madam Pince."

"You're starting to sound like Karuna, Metta."

"What? They sound exactly the same!" Harry exclaimed.

The twins glared at him.

"You'll kill him!"

"And Harry Potter's gay."

"Harry...do you remember what the Prophet said? Those glares are deadly!"

"But nothing the Prophet says is true!"

Karuna interjected. "Actually, this is a good time to believe the prophet.

"Why?" Harry almost shouted.

"Because you'll end up dead like I almost did when I made a twin joke. If you die, they'll resurrect you and do it all over again." Imogen supplied.

"But I didn't make a twin joke..."

"Yes. You did."

"But I..."

"You did."

"What!?"

"We do not sound the same."

"WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON IN HERE!"

Madam Pince had turned up.

"RUN FOR IT!"

They sprinted out of the library, their pursuant yelling abuse as they exited, only to be confronted by one of Fred and George's fireworks on the landing.

"Shit..."

Karuna gasped. "You swore Metta!"

"THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!" Imogen yelled flippantly.

"THE APOCALYPSE IS NIGH!"

"Shut up, Imogen."

"You too Fred."

"How come you don't make twin jokes for them?" Metta asked.

"Because they are identical."

"So?"

"What difference does that make?" sniffed Metta, annoyed.

"And they make all the jokes round here."

"You guys don't even know if you're identical or not, and unlike those two, you don't even bother using your twinliness to your advantage."

"Why should we use twinliness to our advantage?"

"Because it's entertaining."

"For you it is."

"Yup."

George rubbed his hands together. "So, are you guys going to go tell everyone to hide except for the Slytherins?"

Metta and Hermione shook their heads.

"Shirley's in Slytherin. She'll likely bite you if you do anything to her." Metta said.

"Katrina will likely track you down and castrate you."

"As for the other members of 8S3 in Slytherin..." Hermione and Metta looked at each other.

"You'll die a painful, painful death." Karuna supplied.

Fred blanched. "Alright then. How about telling all the other members of 8S3 to hide while we go at the other Slytherins?"

"We need Malfoy out here. ESPECIALLY Malfoy."

They all grinned. "OKAY!"

* * *

"...으르렁 으르렁 으르렁 대! 나 으르렁 으르렁 으르렁 대! 나 으르렁 으르렁 으르렁 대! 타오 너 물러서지 않으면 다쳐도 몰라..." Amity walked around the school humming Growl with Shirley. Katrina was with them, trying to argue that Wolf was better than Growl.

"The rap at the beginning of Wolf is much better!"

"I agree with you, I like both songs. They're both better than MAMA. The MV is cool but the song was just..." Shirley said, waving her arms around trying to indicate how bad it was.

"Shit." Amity finished.

"Hey, hey, I can rap the beginning of Shadow." Katrina said, grinning wildly. "It goes something like..."

"No one cares," Amity growls turning away.

"Katrina, seriously, go rap it to someone who hasn't heard it at least 20 times," Shirley reprimanded.

"What if I rap Wolf?"

"You can try, but you'll never be as good as Chanyeol and Kris...and Tao."

"Anyone else you wanna mention?"

"No."

"So it goes something like... 촉이 와 단번에 느껴 널 한입에 치즈처럼 집어넣을 테다 향길 맡고 색깔 음미하고 와인보다 우아하게 잡아먹을 테다?"

"Eh...close enough."

"And you didn't sing Kai's part."

Katrina ignored Shirley.

"Yay! I now have a new rap to flaunt!"

"I hope you get derped."

She then took off like an airplane. "I HAVE A NEW RAP!" she yelled, causing several students to look utterly baffled and Professor Snape to look mildly amused.

"As...exciting...as it is to have a new rap, do try to refrain from running in the corridors." Professor Snape said, raising an eyebrow.

"Ahahaha...sorry Professor."

"That is alright, Miss Chen."

* * *

Alex was reminded of the first task the next evening when "someone" started an argument on what sort of dragon it would be on the 8S3 table. Fortunately, someone else had the sense to cast _muffliato_, as not to ruin the plot and he hurriedly decided to sit down on the Gryffindor table. Next to Harry.

"I thought Dumbledore got rid of the 8S3 table." Hermione said, looking dumbfounded at the group's new found table.

"Nah," Alex put in. "They got bored and put together another table so that they could socialize properly. Taskies don't like being separated."

Hermione frowned. "I still don't understand this taskie business."

"There isn't much to know."

"Well, then tell us?"

"Isn't it more important for Harry to know about the first task?" Alex abruptly changed the subject.

"Wha...yes..."

Harry turned to face Alex. "Wait a minute...you know about the first task?" Alex looked at him.

"Go meet Hagrid tonight."

"Where?"

"Hermione should be able to tell you."

Harry turned an inquisitive eye on the girl.

"Hermione, what is this about?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Just go meet Hagrid. Alex can go with you."

"What were you told?" Alex asked facetiously.

The bushy-haired girl frowned for a moment, thinking. "I was told by Paravati, who was told by Dean, who was told by Seamus, who had been told by Karuna and Metta, who had been told by Katrina, Shirley and Hieu - "

Harry waved his arms around. "Okay okay! I get it. I'll go."

Alex glared at him. "No, I want to hear all of this."

"All of it?!"

"All of it."

Harry shook his head, while Hermione huffed. "Katrina, Shirley and Hieu were told by Imogen, who had been told by Deepak, Jerry and Richard in the library. I think that's all."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Nice try. Knowing my friends, that isn't everything."

"Ummm..."

"I think that's all she remembers Alex." Harry said, "I doubt anyone could remember the whole thing."

Alex shook his head, before yelling across the room. "OI KATRINA! WHO TOLD DEEPAK, JERRY AND RICHARD ABOUT THE THING?"

Katrina was sitting at the Slytherin table with Daphne Greengrass, discussing some form of homework. Apparently she had left the taskie table a few moments ago.

The tall girl quickly identified Alex and shouted back. "FROM THE BEGINNING, HAGRID TOLD JOSEPH, WHO TOLD KARTIYA, THEN ZOE, HARRY AND DAN, DIHAN, AIDAN, JULIAN, DANIEL, JOEL, ATHENA, BRIGITA, AMY, EDWARD, AMITY, THEN DEEPAK!"

"Thanks... I think." Harry said.

"You're welcome." Alex said, reaching for a slice of cake. "I told you someone had the memory to remember all that."

"Alright, alright. You win. Happy?"

"Nope!"

He dug into his slice of cake.

"Do you know what the first task is?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"Yes. But I thought I'd follow you and Hagrid in my invisibility cloak for the novelty."

"YOU HAVE AN INVISIBILITY CLOAK?!" Alex stage-yelled.

Alex thought for a second. "No-o, but I'll ask Metta and Karuna to make me one tonight and I'll meet you all in the common room at midnight and we can see Sirius at 1."

Harry choked on his pumpkin juice. "How do you know about Sirius?!"

"The same way that I know about absolutely everything else." He shrugged back.

"He has a point, Harry, but Alex, you can't tell anyone."

"And please refer to him as Snuffles." Hermione whispered, glancing around.

Alex shrugged again. "8S3 knows, but otherwise we're good."

"And they won't tell?"

"Oh, well, Sirius d-, shouldn't say that...they understand."

Hermione frowned. "I think you should let Sirius know about it."

"Nah, we trust these people." It was Harry's turn to shrug.

"They blew up half the school!"

"'They' did fix it, though." Alex pointed out.

"No. Dumbl -" They were cut off by everyone heading for bed.

Hermione, Harry and Alex quickly stood. "I'll go up and grab my cloak. You'll need to open the portrait for me from the outside though." Harry said.

Alex nodded. "I need to go ask Karuna and Metta to make one first though."

"They can make one?!" Hermione gasped. He shrugged.

"Powerful witches remember?"

Alex went over to the taskie table, where Metta and Karuna were busy bagging each other's voices.

"Can you guys make me an invisibility cloak right now?"

Karuna looked up from her arguing. They looked at each other.

"Use a wordless spell."

Alex groaned. He knew where this was going.

"Fine." One of them said.

They quickly worked out the basic spell for creating an invisibility cloak of sufficient power to match Harry's, nodded to each other and a silvery piece of material...materialized from thin air.

"It's a bit bigger than Harry's, but the spell's stronger, even if death didn't give it to Peverell." Metta supplied.

"Thanks." And he followed The Chosen One upstairs.

* * *

When Harry appeared from behind the portrait of the fat lady at 9 o'clock that night, he did it shiftily.

"If Filch catches us..."

"He won't, he loves me, and besides, we're wearing invisibility cloaks."

"I don't see why you can't just tell me..."

"It'd ruin the surprise, besides, there's something that I want to check on."

There a pause. "...why does Filch love you?"

"I found a much better supplier of cat food; the house elves just aren't up to scratch."

"Muggle?"

"Mundane, Harry. MUNDANE! And no, this is the 8S3 brand, extremely good for Mrs. Norris' eyesight and understanding."

"Ah...wait, you increased her eyesight and understanding?! Do you know how much trouble that cat has caused us?!"

"It also has a brainwashing potion brewed by one of the twins. She's now harmless as a...mouse."

"Which one?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Oh, been reading Rita Skeeter? It was probably Karuna for the headlines' sake."

Harry moved slowly away from Alex. The younger boy rolled his eyes. "I'm not carrying anything."

"Are you sure?"

"OF COURSE I'm sure. Now are we going to head down or not?"

The two quickly sneaked down to Hagrid's hut, thankfully, not meeting any poltergeists...namely, Peeves.

Though Alex lamented the opportunity to meet such a famed prankster. Harry ignored him and knocked on the door huge doors of the hut.

"Hi Hagrid, there's two of us here, we got your message, let's see some dragons." Alex summarized before Harry could get a word in edgeways.

"Glad yeh could ma' it Alex, Harry."

Hagrid was sporting the ugliest coat they had ever seen, and wearing the foulest smelling perfume yet to have been smelt.

"Is that hair gel Hagrid?"

"You've tried to comb it!"

"Here, Hagrid, have a disentangling spell."

"Nooo..." It was Harry who interrupted. "He has to at least look like Hagrid."

Alex lowered his wand. "Good point."

Before either of them could say anything, Hagrid had walked over to the Beauxbatons' carriage and knocked.

"Bong-sewer," the half-giant said, giving an awkward bow as Madam Maxime stepped out.

"Is that some kind of drug?" Alex whispered.

Harry, invisible, gave a twin-esque glare.

"Hey! We learnt French! It's Bonsoir."

Hagrid turned and Maxime looked curious.

"You did not tell me that you 'ad brought your walking circus."

"Oh...no...French...tutor."

Harry heard Alex face-palm himself before turning his attention to the two, humongous people.

"Well, are we going to see the dragons?" he asked jocularly.

"Stop it, Alex, you're ruining his date!" Harry interrupted hurriedly.

"Oh..." Alex stopped. "Sorry." He smiled sheepishly.

Hagrid on the other hand, looked shocked – and not for the reason they thought. "Dragons? Who told yeh 'bout that?"

_Fuck..._Alex thought. And he was right. Fuck indeed.

"Well...uh..." All eyes were on him. "It wasn't really that hard to guess – I mean, who keeps fifteen metre tall stuff in the forest anyway? And considering how loud they are..."

The giant sighed. "Well, I suppose yeh're right." He then turned away to face Madam Maxime. "Let's go then." Harry and Alex hurried to follow the two giants, who had decided to ignore them altogether.

"Do they have to walk so fast?" Harry asked, panting slightly. Walking with Hagrid and Maxime equaled to jogging.

Alex, who wasn't quite panting, replied. "They're half-giants remember?"

"I kn- they're what?"

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You've known Hagrid for this long, and you haven't figured it out yet?"

"We always thought it was a spell gone wrong or something!" Harry protested. The other boy looked at him condescendingly.

"No. Just no."

Harry rolled his eyes.

* * *

Finally, they ended up at a clearing. The two boys heard something. Men were shouting up ahead...then came a deafening, earsplitting roar...Hagrid led Madame Maxime around a clump of trees and came to a halt. They hurried up alongside them — for a split second, they both thought they were seeing bonfires, and men darting around them — and then Harry's mouth fell open.

_Dragons._

Five fully grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons were rearing onto their hind legs inside an enclosure fenced with thick planks of wood, roaring and snorting — torrents of fire were shooting into the dark sky from their open, fanged mouths, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks. There was a silvery-blue one with long, pointed horns, snapping and snarling at the wizards on the ground; a smooth-scaled green one, which was writhing and stamping with all its might; a red one with an odd fringe of fine gold spikes around its face, which was shooting mushroom-shaped fire clouds into the air; and a gigantic black one, more lizard-like than the others, which was nearest to them. Then, there was the dark purple one, looking almost black in the night. It shot...lightening out of its mouth.

At least forty wizards, seven or eight to each dragon, were attempting to control them, pulling on the chains connected to heavy leather straps around their necks and legs. Mesmerized, Alex looked up, high above him, and saw the eyes of the purple dragon, with vertical pupils like a cat's, bulging with either fear or rage, he couldn't tell which...It was making a horrible noise, a yowling, screeching scream...

"Keep back there, Hagrid!" yelled a wizard near the fence, straining on the chain he was holding. "They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet, you know! I've seen this Czerfyi do forty of lightening!"

"Is'n' it beautiful?" said Hagrid softly.

"Fucking hell. If that's beauty, then I'm screwed for life." Alex commented.

Harry raised an eyebrow. "What happened to your YOLO saying?"

"There are times when you can't really use that acronym Harry."

"It's no good!" yelled another wizard. "Stunning Spells, on the count of three!"

Alex sighed. Their appearance in the Harry Potter realm had really fucked things up. Now...there was a dragon called Czerfyi. Scary or what? Imagine having a dragon named after your HIGG teacher...

Harry saw each of the dragon keepers pull out his wand.

"_Stupefy_!" They shouted in unison, and the Stunning Spells shot into the darkness like fiery rockets, bursting in showers of stars on the dragons' scaly hides —

Harry watched the dragon nearest to them teeter dangerously on its back legs; its jaws stretched wide in a silent howl; its nostrils were suddenly devoid of flame, though still smoking — then, very slowly, it fell. Several tons of sinewy, scaly-purple dragon hit the ground with a thud that they could have sworn made the trees behind him quake.

The dragon keepers lowered their wands and walked forward to their fallen charges, each of which was the size of a small hill. They hurried to tighten the chains and fasten them securely to iron pegs, which they forced deep into the ground with their wands.

"You were saying?" Harry asked, smirking. Alex face faulted onto the ground.

"Wan' a closer look?" Hagrid asked Madame Maxime excitedly.

The pair of them moved right up to the fence, and the two teens followed. The wizard who had warned Hagrid not to come any closer turned, and Harry realized who it was: Charlie Weasley. He reached down and quickly pulled the other boy back on his feet.

"That's Ron's brother, Charlie. He works in Romania with dragons." Harry said, pointing to the red head.

"I think I've heard of him somewhere..."

"All right, Hagrid?" he panted, coming over to talk. "They should be okay now — we put them out with a Sleeping Draft on the way here, thought it might be better for them to wake up in the dark and the quiet — but, like you saw, they weren't happy, not happy at all —"

"What breeds you got here, Charlie?" said Hagrid, gazing at the closest dragon, the black one, with something close to reverence. Its eyes were still just open. Harry could see a strip of gleaming yellow beneath its wrinkled black eyelid.

"That thing's vicious." Alex commented to Harry. He nodded in agreement.

"This is a Hungarian Horntail," said Charlie. "There's a Common Welsh Green over there, the smaller one — a Swedish Short- Snout, that blue gray — and a Chinese Fireball, that's the red. Oh there's also a new breed we discovered – The Czerfyi – the purple one." Charlie looked around; Madame Maxime was strolling away around the edge of the enclosure, gazing at the stunned dragons.

"I didn't know you were bringing her, Hagrid," Charlie said, frowning.

"The champions aren't supposed to know what's coming — she's bound to tell her student, isn't she?"

"Jus' thought she'd like ter see 'em," shrugged Hagrid, still gazing, enraptured, at the dragons.

"Really romantic date, Hagrid," said Charlie, shaking his head.

"Five..." said Hagrid, "So it's one fer each o' the champions, is it? What've they gotta do — fight 'em?"

"Just get past them, I think," said Charlie. "We'll be on hand if it gets nasty, Extinguishing Spells at the ready. They wanted nesting mothers, I don't know why...but I tell you this, I don't envy the one who gets the Czerfyi. Vicious thing. Its back end's as dangerous as its front, look."

Charlie pointed toward the Czefyi's tail, and Alex saw long, purple colored crystal like spikes protruding along it every few inches. They sparked with electricity. Five of Charlie's fellow keepers staggered up to the Czerfyi at that moment, carrying a clutch of huge granite-gray eggs between them in a blanket. They placed them carefully at the Czerfyi's side. Hagrid let out a moan of longing.

"I've got them counted, Hagrid," said Charlie sternly. Then he said, "How's Harry?"

"Fine," said Hagrid. He was still gazing at the eggs.

"Just hope he's still fine after he's faced this lot," said Charlie grimly, looking out over the dragons' enclosure. "I didn't dare tell Mum what he's got to do for the first task; she's already having kittens about him..."

Charlie imitated his mother's anxious voice. "'_How could they let him enter that tournament, he's much too young_! _I thought they were all safe, I thought there was going to be an agelimit_!' She was in floods after that _Daily Prophet _article about him. '_He still cries about his parents_! _Oh bless him, I never knew_!'"

Hidden in some corner of the clearing, Harry groaned while Alex face faulted onto the ground again.

"You know, you should sue the Prophet. I'm sure you have the money for it." Alex noted, face still buried in the ground.

The Chosen One glared at him, burning hole through his back "Why don't you go do it? They have more on your friends than on me."

"Ahhh Harry, that's where you're wrong. None of us give a damn."

Harry groaned again. Alex sat up. "What are you, pregnant or something?"

* * *

Harry and Alex reached the castle, slipped in through the front doors, and began to climb the marble stairs; they were very out of breath, but they didn't dare slow down...they had less than five minutes to get up to the fire...

"Balderdash!" Harry gasped at the Fat Lady, who was snoozing in her frame in front of the portrait hole.

"If you say so," she muttered sleepily, without opening her eyes, and the picture swung forward to admit him. Alex climbed inside, followed by Harry. The common room was deserted, and, judging by the fact that it smelled quite normal, Hermione had not needed to set off any Dungbombs to ensure that he and Sirius got privacy. Harry pulled off the Invisibility Cloak and threw himself into an armchair in front of the fire. The room was in semidarkness; the flames were the only source of light. Nearby, on a table, the "_Support_ _Cedric Diggory_!" badges the Creeveys had been trying to improve were glinting in the firelight. They now read _POTTER REALLY_ _STINKS. _Harry looked back into the flames, and jumped. Sirius's head was sitting in the fire. If Harry hadn't seen Mr Diggory do exactly this back in the Weasleys' kitchen, it would have scared him out of his wits. Instead, his face breaking into the first smile he had worn for days, he scrambled out of his chair, crouched down by the hearth, and said, "Sirius — how're you doing?" Sirius looked different from Harry's memory of him. When they had said good-bye, Sirius's face had been gaunt and sunken, surrounded by a quantity of long, black, matted hair — but the hair was short and clean now, Sirius's face was fuller, and he looked younger, much more like the only photograph Harry had of him, which had been taken at the Potters' wedding.

"Never mind me, how are you?" said Sirius seriously.

"I'm —" For a second, Harry tried to say "fine" — but he couldn't do it. Before he could stop himself, he was talking more than he'd talked in days — about how no one believed he hadn't entered the tournament of his own free will, how Rita Skeeter had lied about him in the _Daily Prophet, _how he couldn't walk down a corridor without being sneered at — and about Ron, Ron not believing him, Ron's jealousy...

"...and now Hagrid's just shown me what's coming in the first task, and it's dragons, Sirius, and I'm a goner," he finished desperately.

Sirius looked at him, eyes full of concern, eyes that had not yet lost the look that Azkaban had given them — that deadened, haunted look. He had let Harry talk himself into silence without interruption, but now he said, "Dragons we can deal with, Harry, but we'll get to that in a minute — I haven't got long here...I've broken into a wizarding house to use the fire, but they could be back at any time. There are things I need to warn you about. But firstly, I need to know about these...new students in your school."

"What?" said Harry, feeling his spirits slip a further few notches, completely ignoring what Sirius had just asked him. Surely there could be nothing worse than dragons coming?

"Harry. The new students." This snapped Harry back to the conversation.

"They're really not that bad Sirius. You can go throw everything about them in the Daily Prophet away. You can meet Alex now if you like..."

Sirius blanched. "What are you talking about Harry? He can't know about me."

Harry shook his head. "That's not going to matter anymore. They already know about you."

"What do you mean Harry? How can they know? You can't trust them yet!"

"No – wait, listen for a moment. Did you read about the school 8S3 in Australia?" Sirius nodded. He continued, "You can trust me on this. One of them is the heir of Slytherin and the other is the heir of Gryffindor! And do you know what? They all get along fine, even though half of them are in Slytherin."

Harry then spent the next few minutes telling Sirius all about the new students. About the twins, the explosion of the greenhouses, Professor Snape's treatment of them...EVERYTHING. Eventually, Alex and Sirius got into a conversation about the Dark Mark and how it looked like some skeleton barfing up snakes. Soon enough, Alex stepped back and allowed Harry to speak privately with Sirius.

"Interesting..." his Godfather said. "Now, about earlier...Karkaroff, he was a Death Eater. You know what Death Eaters are, don't you?"

"Yes — he — what?"

"He was caught, he was in Azkaban with me, but he got released. I'd bet everything that's why Dumbledore wanted an Auror at Hogwarts this year — to keep an eye on him. Moody caught Karkaroff. Put him into Azkaban in the first place."

"Karkaroff got released?" Harry said slowly — his brain seemed to be struggling to absorb yet another piece of shocking information.

"Why did they release him?"

"He did a deal with the Ministry of Magic," said Sirius bitterly.

"He said he'd seen the error of his ways, and then he named names...he put a load of other people into Azkaban in his place...He's not very popular in there, I can tell you. And since he got out, from what I can tell, he's been teaching the Dark Arts to every student who passes through that school of his. So watch out for the Durmstrang champion as well."

"Actually, Sirius, Krum's harmless. It's only when you beat him in a Quidditch match do you have to out." Alex put in.

"Okay," said Harry slowly, turning back to Sirius. "But...are you saying Karkaroff put my name in the goblet? Because if he did, he's a really good actor. He seemed furious about it. He wanted to stop me from competing."

"We know he's a good actor," said Sirius, "because he convinced the Ministry of Magic to set him free, didn't he? Now, I've been keeping an eye on the _Daily Prophet, _Harry —"

"— you and the rest of the world," said Harry bitterly.

"Not me!" Alex added his two cents in.

"— and reading between the lines of that Skeeter woman's article last month, Moody was attacked the night before he started at Hogwarts. Yes, I know she says it was another false alarm," Sirius said hastily, seeing Harry about to speak, "But I don't think so, somehow. I think someone tried to stop him from getting to Hogwarts. I think someone knew their job would be a lot more difficult with him around. And no one's going to look into it too closely; Mad-Eye's heard intruders a bit too often. But that doesn't mean he can't still spot the real thing. Moody was the best Auror the Ministry ever had."

"So...what are you saying?" said Harry slowly. "Karkaroff's trying to kill me? But — why?"

Sirius hesitated.

"I've been hearing some very strange things," he said slowly. "The Death Eaters seem to be a bit more active than usual lately. They showed themselves at the Quidditch World Cup, didn't they? Someone set off the Dark Mark...and then — did you hear about that Ministry of Magic witch who's gone missing?"

"Bertha Jorkins?" said Harry.

"Exactly...she disappeared in Albania, and that's definitely where Voldemort was rumored to be last...and she would have known the Triwizard Tournament was coming up, wouldn't she?"

"Yeah, but...it's not very likely she'd have walked straight into Voldemort, is it?" said Harry.

"Listen, I knew Bertha Jorkins," said Sirius grimly. "She was at Hogwarts when I was, a few years above your dad and me. And she was an idiot. Very nosy, but no brains, none at all. It's not a good combination, Harry. I'd say she'd be very easy to lure into a trap."

Alex started nodding as if he know everything about the topic.

"So...so Voldemort could have found out about the tournament?" said Harry. "Is that what you mean? You think Karkaroff might be here on his orders?"

"I don't know," said Sirius slowly, "I just don't know...Karkaroff doesn't strike me as the type who'd go back to Voldemort unless he knew Voldemort was powerful enough to protect him. But whoever put your name in that goblet did it for a reason, and I can't help thinking the tournament would be a very good way to attack you and make it look like an accident."

"Looks like a really good plan from where I'm standing," said Harry grinning bleakly. "They'll just have to stand back and let the dragons do their stuff."

"Right — these dragons," said Sirius, speaking very quickly now. "There's a way, Harry. Don't be tempted to try a Stunning Spell — dragons are strong and too powerfully magical to be knocked out by a single Stunner, you need about half a dozen wizards at a time to overcome a dragon —"

"Yeah, I know, I just saw," said Harry.

"But you can do it alone," said Sirius. "There is a way, and a simple spell's all you need. Just —"

But Harry held up a hand to silence him, his heart suddenly pounding as though it would burst. He could hear footsteps coming down the spiral staircase behind him.

"Go!" he hissed at Sirius, while Alex protested, saying that it was only Ron. "_Go_! There's someone coming!"

Harry scrambled to his feet, hiding the fire — if someone saw Sirius's face within the walls of Hogwarts, they would raise an almighty uproar — the Ministry would get dragged in — he, Harry, would be questioned about Sirius's whereabouts — Harry heard a tiny _pop_ in the fire behind him and knew Sirius had gone. He watched the bottom of the spiral staircase. Who had decided to go for a stroll at one o'clock in the morning, and stopped Sirius from telling him how to get past a dragon?

It was Ron, just as Alex said. Dressed in his maroon paisley pajamas, Ron stopped dead facing Harry and Alex across the room, and looked around.

"Who were you talking to?" he said.

"Who do you think Ronald?" Steinmeyer asked.

"What's that got to do with you?" Harry snarled. "What are you doing down here at this time of night?"

"I just wondered where you —" Ron broke off, shrugging. "Nothing. I'm going back to bed."

"Just thought you'd come nosing around, did you?" Harry shouted. He knew that Ron had no idea what he'd walked in on, knew he hadn't done it on purpose, but he didn't care — at this moment he hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath his pajama trousers.

"Sorry about that," said Ron, his face reddening with anger. "Should've realized you didn't want to be disturbed. I'll let you get on with practicing for your next interview in peace."

Harry seized one of the _POTTER REALLY STINKS _badges off the table and chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and bounced off.

"There you go," Harry said. "Something for you to wear on Tuesday. You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky...That's what you want, isn't it?"

The redhead glared, something he must have picked up from on the twins, before storming back to the dormitories. Alex patted Harry on the shoulder. "Don't worry about him. You have the whole of 8S3 with you," he paused for a moment. "And try not to be so much of a brat."

Though that comment would have normally been considered not good, it was somewhat reassuring to Harry. He went to bed with a lighter heart.


End file.
